Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation)

Professor Wang Zuankai is Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU).

Professor Wang received his B.S. degree from Jilin University in 2000, M.S. degree from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2003, and Ph.D. degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2008. After a one-year postdoctoral training at Columbia University, he joined the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) in September 2009 and became a Chair Professor in July 2021. He was the Associate Dean in the College of Engineering (2019-2022) and founding Deputy Director of the Research Center for Nature-inspired Engineering (2021-2022) at CityU. He serves as the Executive Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Droplet (Wiley), and associate editor and advisory board member for more than 10 journals.

Professor Wang is a founding member of the Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences, RGC Senior Research Fellow (2022), Fellow of the International Society of Bionic Engineering (ISBE), Highly Cited Researcher as recognized by Clarivate (2022), and Changjiang Chair Professor by the Ministry of Education of China (2016). His work has been recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records and his innovations have won the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva Gold Medal with Congratulations of Jury and Gold Medal. He has received many awards including the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship (2023), BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize (2022), Green Tech Award (2021), Xplorer Prize (2020), Hall of Fame (Advanced Engineering Materials) (2019), 35^th World Cultural Council Special Recognition Award (2018), President's Lectureship (2018 and 2020), Outstanding Research Award (Senior) (2017), President's Award at CityU (2016 and 2017), Outstanding Youth Award conferred by ISBE (2016), OSA Young Scientist Award (2016), Chinese Government Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad Award (2007), and Materials Research Society (MRS) Graduate Student Silver Award (2007). The Ph.D. students he supervised have won a number of prestigious awards including MRS Graduate Student Gold Award (2016) and Silver Award (2015 and 2021), Hiwin Doctoral Dissertation Award (2016, 2019 and 2021), and Hong Kong Young Scientist Award (2015, 2019 and 2022).