PolyU appoints Prof. Cao Jiannong as Vice President (Education)

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to announce the appointment of Prof. CAO Jiannong as Vice President (Education). He assumed office on 1 September 2025.

Prof. Cao is an internationally renowned scholar in computing and data science, specialising in parallel and distributed computing, wireless sensing and networking, big data and artificial intelligence, and mobile cloud and edge computing. He has published six co-authored and nine co-edited books, along with over 800 papers in major international journals and conference proceedings, and holds 34 patents. He has received numerous awards for his outstanding research achievements.

Prof. Cao currently serves as Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Professor in Data Science, Chair Professor of Distributed and Mobile Computing in the Department of Computing, and Director of the Institute for Higher Education Research and Development (IHERD). He previously served as Head of the Department of Computing from 2011 to 2017, Dean of Graduate School, and Head of the College of Undergraduate Researchers and Innovators (CURI) from 2021 to 2025.

Welcoming the appointment, Prof. Jin-Guang TENG, President of PolyU, said, “Prof. Cao is a distinguished scholar and visionary academic leader. He has served PolyU with dedication for the past 27 years and possesses extensive leadership and management experience in higher education. In his new role, I am confident that Prof. Cao will propel PolyU to even greater heights of educational excellence, help the University nurture professionals and leaders who can excel in the artificial intelligence era, and make significant contributions to further strengthen PolyU’s development as an innovative world-class university.”

As Vice President (Education), Prof. Cao oversees the planning and development of learning and teaching across the University. He will lead the development and enhancement of academic programmes, advancing curriculum and pedagogy; drive digital transformation and the adoption of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, to foster innovation in education; and develop and implement institutional policies and plans to ensure academic quality assurance in an evolving digital landscape.

Prof. Cao received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Washington State University. He is a member of Academia Europaea, a fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a fellow of the China Computer Federation (CCF), and a distinguished member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He served as Chair of the Technical Committee on Distributed Computing of the IEEE Computer Society from 2012 to 2014, and received the Overseas Outstanding Contribution Award from the CCF in 2017.

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