PolyU scholars honoured as RGC Senior Research Fellows and Research Fellow in recognition of outstanding research achievements

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) excels in impactful research and is committed to translating research outcomes into innovative applications that benefit people’s lives. Three PolyU scholars have been awarded fellowships under the Research Grants Council’s (RGC) Senior Research Fellow Scheme (SRFS) and Research Fellow Scheme (RFS) 2025/26, in recognition of their outstanding research achievements in the fields of biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence, and advanced materials.

The award recipients are Prof. Lei SUN, Professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering; and Prof. Kay Chen TAN, Head of the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence, both of whom have been named RGC Senior Research Fellows. Prof. Jiong ZHAO, Professor of the Department of Applied Physics, has been conferred as RGC Research Fellow.

Prof. Christopher CHAO, PolyU Vice President (Research and Innovation), extended his congratulations to the awardees and said, “The recognition of our scholars not only reflects PolyU’s pursuit of academic and research excellence, but also demonstrates our commitment to fostering researchers’ professional growth. These achievements underscore the University’s significant impact on the global academic and research community, as well as our contributions to Hong Kong’s development as an international hub for post-secondary education.”

The SRFS project, “Development of sonogenetics for non-human primates,” led by Prof. Lei Sun, aims to develop a new version of sonogenetics specifically for non-human primates and to investigate its performance in terms of cellular specificity, spatial accuracy and penetration capability. This non-invasive method for modulating specific brain regions has the potential to open a new dimension for ultrasound stimulation, offering a ground-breaking and critical approach to non-invasive, precise brain stimulation with deep brain penetration. This  new sonogentics may lead to the dissection of global neural network connections, a better understanding of the circuits underlying neurological and psychiatric disorders, and ultimately serve as a valuable therapeutic tool.

The SRFS project, “Towards adaptive pretrained vision-language foundation models for medical image analysis,” led by Prof. Kay Chen Tan, aims to lay out key roadmaps that guide the development and deployment of vision-language model based healthcare models, with a primary focus on four key areas: framework, data, application, and generalisation. An integrated intelligent interpretation system will be developed to provide personalised and human-centric healthcare, featuring several functionalities such as visual question answering, radiology reports and computer-aided diagnosis. The project aims to improve quality of healthcare services, ease strain on medical resources and solidify Hong Kong’s leadership in AI-powered healthcare innovation.

The RFS project, “From slidetronics to twistronics: a twisting platform for dissipationless ferroelectricity”, led by Prof. Jiong Zhao, primarily focuses on Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and 2D materials. The team has developed expertise and achieved significant advancements in structural characterisations and physical field measurement utilising in situ TEM, STEM, 4D-STEM and others. By integrating these cutting-edge methods with synthesis, device fabrication and theoretical frameworks, the project contributes to improving material quality and enabling device applications. These advanced 2D materials and 2D ferroelectric materials are set to be game changers for future electronics and optoelectronics, with significant potential to enhance device performance.

SRFS and RFS aim to provide sustained support to exceptionally outstanding researchers at the University Grants Committee-funded universities in Hong Kong. Each scheme provides ten grants to scholars from any academic disciplines, with funding support for a period of 60 months. The supporting university will receive a fellowship grant of around HK$8.2 million per award for SRFS projects and HK$5.5 million for RFS projects.

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