The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) today (1 June) announced the appointment of Ir Professor Alexander Wai Ping-kong, Associate Vice President and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, to the post of Vice President (Research Development). Professor Wai will take over the key post from Professor Albert Chan Sun-chi with effect from 1 July 2010.
Professor Wai received a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree in Physics with first class honours from The University of Hong Kong in 1981 and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, in 1988. His thesis research was on the nonlinear propagation of optical signals in optical fibers.
Professor Wai started his career as a Research Scientist with Science Applications International Corporation in McLean, Virginia, United States, and then as a Research Associate in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, in 1990. He joined PolyU as an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electronic Engineering in 1996. In 2002, Professor Wai became Professor and Head of Department of the Electronic and Information Engineering. In 2005, he was promoted to Chair Professor of Optical Communications and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering. Since 2008, he has also served as Associate Vice President.
Professor Wai, in the capacity of Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, has contributed significantly to the development of the outcome-based education and the 4-year curriculum. With a view to enhancing the teaching and learning quality, Professor Wai has launched a number of initiatives, including the involvement of overseas expert in engineering education in programme development and assessment, collecting feedbacks from graduates, and the provision of additional training to strengthen the mathematic background of engineering students. Under his leadership, the world ranking of Engineering and Information Technology has risen to 91 according to Times Higher Education Supplement in 2009.
On the research side, Professor Wai's focus while in the United States was on fiber optic communication. He had made important contributions to the study of interaction of polarisation mode dispersion and nonlinearity on high speed optical fiber communication systems. In Hong Kong, Professor Wai began his research on future optical network technology including all-optical packet-switching. He designed and demonstrated routing of optical information with all-optical processing of the packet header information. He has received three United States patents on his inventions in optical packet-switching technologies while other patents are pending. Professor Wai is an active contributor to the technical field. He has over 130 refereed international journal publications. To recognise his contribution in optical communication and optical networks, Professor Wai was elected to the rank of Fellow by Optical Society of America in 2009.
In announcing the new appointment, PolyU President Professor Timothy W. Tong also registered a vote of thanks to outgoing Vice President Professor Albert Chan Sun-chi, who will assume duty as President and Vice-Chancellor of Hong Kong Baptist University on 1 July 2010. He commended Professor Chan for his distinguished contribution to PolyU over the years, particularly in advancing research and development and in leading the University's Shenzhen-based Institute of Modern Chinese Medicine.
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