From left: Prof Raymond Chan Hon-fu, Vice-President (Academics) cum Provost and Lam Man Tsan Chair Professor of Scientific Computing of Lingnan University, President Qin, Prof Guillermo Sapiro, and Prof Richard M. Walker, Director of the LUIAS.
The ceremony was officiated by Prof S. Joe Qin, President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science at Lingnan University, who welcomed Prof Sapiro’s appointment warmly, and said “Prof Sapiro currently teaches at world-renowned Princeton University and has great influence in academic fields such as computer vision and graphics, medical imaging, image analysis, and machine learning. His machine learning research has been applied to the development of intelligent medical devices, improving both the efficiency and quality of healthcare. At the same time, he brings extensive experience in his role leading the Health AI research team at Apple to turning cutting-edge research into real-world applications. I am confident that he will introduce new perspectives to Lingnan’s interdisciplinary research, and enable the transformation of pioneering research into innovative technologies.”
Prof Sapiro has published over 550 academic papers on computer vision and machine learning, which have received more than 80,000 citations, as well as authoring works published by Cambridge University Press. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018 and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2022, and is also a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, having been the founding Editor-in-Chief of the SIAM Journal on Imaging Sciences.
Prof Sapiro has received numerous accolades, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE Award), the National Science Foundation Career Award, and the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship. He is also the only scholar to have received the Test-of-Time awards at both the International Conference on Computer Vision (2011) and the International Conference on Machine Learning (2019).
Following the conferment, Prof Sapiro delivered an intriguing lecture entitled "The Real and Impactful AI Revolution Will Come in Healthcare", delving into the far-reaching influence of artificial intelligence with a particular focus on its profound impact in healthcare. His pioneering work demonstrates how AI and computer vision are making healthcare more accessible, accurate, and holistic. Prof Sapiro gave examples, such as AI-powered autism screening, nutritional assessment, and biological age measurement, to illustrate the real-world impact of these technologies, and his lecture underscored AI’s great potential to revolutionise medical practice, improve patient outcomes, and address critical global health challenges, allowing the audience to envision a future where technology and healthcare are seamlessly integrated for the greater good.
