The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University(PolyU) is delighted to announce that Prof. Jiang Liming, Prof. Asif Usmani, and Dr Chu Tianwei have received the prestigious Philip Thomas Medal of Excellence Award from International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). This award is to recognize the only one best paper of each IAFSS held in every three years, and the award will be presented at the 15th IAFSS symposium in 2026, La Rochelle, France.
IAFSS as the most recognized association in fire safety research, was founded in 1985, which organises the IAFSS symposiums every three years. The Philip Thomas Medal of Excellence is awarded to the author(s) of the best paper presented at a previous IAFSS Symposium, which is selected according to the five criteria: pertinence, utility, significance, rationality, eloquence of the paper.
The 2026 Philip Thomas Medal of Excellence is awarded to BEEE research team for their best paper presented in IAFSS 2023, which is titled “Introducing an active opening strategy to mitigate large open-plan compartment fire development”. This research is led by Prof. Jiang Liming (Associate Professor of BEEE, Chief Supervisor of 1st Author and Corresponding author of the awarded paper), whose research mainly focuses on fire safety of modern buildings and automated construction solutions. The 1st author Dr Chu Tianwei was a PhD student in BEEE, graduated in March 2025, has just started his Associate Professor job in China University of Mining and Technology. The 3rd author of this awarded paper is Prof. Asif Usmani, who is Chair Professor of Building Sciences and Fire Safety Engineering, and the co-supervisor of Dr Chu Tianwei.
This prestigious medal demonstrates the international recognition of BEEE research team in the field of fire safety research and underscores PolyU’s and BEEE’s commitment to research excellence and innovation. More details about IAFSS Philip Thomas Meda of Excellence could be found here: https://iafss.org/awards/philip-thomas-medal-of-excellence/
