Prof Jean-Michel Morel, Chair Professor of the Division of Industrial Data Science at Lingnan University, has been elected as a Foreign Member of the Luxembourg Academy of Sciences and Arts.
The Academy’s membership comprises over 20 Nobel laureates alongside global pre-eminent scholars who have received prestigious international honours such as the Turing Award, Shaw Prize, and Wolf Prize.
Prof S. Joe Qin, President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science at Lingnan University, congratulated Prof Morel on his election, “Prof Morel has built a distinguished career across academia and industry. This recognition from the international academic community underscores Lingnan’s strategic success in actively attracting top-tier global scholars in recent years. Prof Morel’s expertise will greatly empower our newly established innovation and entrepreneurship platform, the 'LU Xcelerator (LUX)', to drive the convergence of AI technologies across diverse fields and foster high-quality interdisciplinary research. As Lingnan surges in global university rankings, the University will continue to spearhead major engineering initiatives, showing the world the Hong Kong SAR's higher education prowess in emerging engineering and technology.”
Deeply honoured, Prof Morel said, “My academic journey began in pure mathematics and gradually expanded into image analysis and data science, where I developed corresponding mathematical models and algorithms. This has convinced me that interdisciplinary research can deliver innovative solutions to the real world. I have always believed that research should dare to innovate with the betterment of society as its goal, and that the value of research outcomes stands the test of time. I look forward to further advancing academic exchanges and collaborations between Lingnan and international scholars, exploring more innovative applications in interdisciplinary areas such as AI, image analysis, digital humanities and data science, and bridging fundamental research with practical applications.”
Inspired in his early career by pure mathematical concepts, Prof Morel developed a keen interest in computer vision and AI, formulating numerous image processing and analysis algorithms encompassing image denoising and automated object recognition in imagery. Many of these innovations have been widely integrated into imaging systems for smartphones, medical imaging devices, and earth observation satellites.Notably, an image denoising algorithm co-invented by Prof Morel was adopted by the global imaging software and hardware company DxO Labs, and deployed in more than 700 million camera-equipped smartphones to enhance image quality. Furthermore, his research team has collaborated with the French space agency Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) on the design of several Earth observation satellites, applying their research outcomes directly to satellite image processing.
Regarding his academic achievements, Prof Morel was included on the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) list of Highly Cited Mathematicians in 2006, and has been one of Stanford University’s Top 2% Scientists Worldwide since 2019. He has authored eight books, published over 190 articles in international journals, and holds 15 co-invented patents.
About the Luxembourg Academy of Sciences and Arts
Established in 2024, the Luxembourg Academy of Sciences and Arts is an independent, non-profit, scholarly organisation that brings together more than 200 Members and Foreign Members from over 60 countries and regions across eight broad academic fields. LASA is dedicated to bridging science, technology, arts, humanities, and education to vigorously promote interdisciplinary knowledge exchange worldwide.
