Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2025

We are proud to announce that three distinguished members of our department have been recognised with the Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2025, presented by the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences (FCMS), celebrating their exceptional contributions in teaching and research.

Award Recipients:

Prof. AU Man Ho Allen, Professor and Associate Head (Research and Development)

• Individual Award in Research and Scholarly Activities

Prof. AU is internationally renowned for his research in information security, applied cryptography, and blockchain technologies, with impactful applications in FinTech, Web3, and digital identity. His accolades include the BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize, multiple Best Paper Awards, and two consecutive ZPrize wins. He also serves as a founding member of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Expert Group, contributing to the development of privacy-preserving digital currencies.

Prof. FAN Wenqi, Assistant Professor

• Individual Award in Research and Scholarly Activities under “Early Career Researcher” subcategory

Prof. FAN’s research focuses on machine learning and data mining, particularly in recommender systems (RecSys), graph neural networks (GNNs), and adversarial attacks. He received the AI 2000 Most Influential Scholar Honorable Mention (2022 - 2025), and was named among the World’s Top 2% Scientists (2023 - 2025) by Stanford University and Elsevier.

Dr Aquil MOHAMMED, Senior Lecturer

• Individual Award in Teaching under “Early Career Teacher” subcategory

Dr MOHAMMED brings a rich interdisciplinary background to his teaching and research, with expertise in robotics—from surgical applications to construction automation. His work also spans underwater communications, embedded systems, neural network modelling, machine learning, deep learning, optimisation, big data analytics, etc. He has secured over HK$1M+ in industrial awards and start-up funding, demonstrating his strength in both hardware and software development for real-world societal applications.

The winners of the Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement were selected by a Faculty Assessment Panel, which includes Heads of Unit and is chaired by the Interim Dean of FCMS, from amongst a pool of well-qualified nominees put forward by individual departments under FCMS.