Former UCLA Dean of Physical Sciences Tony Chan has been appointed as president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
“I hope to build on the great successes that HKUST has achieved in its very young existence of 17 years,” Chan said.
The university was founded in October 1991 and is the only science and technology research university in Hong Kong, according to the school’s Web site.
Chan was recruited by a headhunting firm last summer, he said. According to the UCLA Today Web site, he was approved by the Hong Kong University’s Council on March 30.
Chan said he hopes to enhance the university’s reputation as a research and teaching institution.
“I want to further advance its worldwide reputation in research and education by recruiting the best faculty and students and contributing to the local and regional society,” he said.
After completing undergraduate and masters degrees in engineering at the California Institute of Technology and a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University, Chan joined UCLA as a math professor in 1986.
He has conducted extensive research focusing on image processing, computer vision and brain mapping. He became head of the mathematics department in 1997 and directed the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics from 2000 to 2001. He was then dean of physical sciences from 2001 to 2006.
“Tony is a scholar with extensive administrative experience,” said UCLA Professor of mathematics Herbert Enderton in an e-mailed statement.
In 2006, Chan was appointed assistant directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C.
According Chan’s Web site, his research fund totaled approximately $1 billion a year to support astronomy, physics, chemistry, mathematics, materials science and multidisciplinary activities.
He currently holds honorary joint appointments with the bioengineering department and the computer science department at UCLA, and he will start his presidency at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on Sept. 1.