Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme)

Professor Daniel T. L. Shek is Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme), Dean of College of Undergraduate Studies, Chair Professor of Applied Social Sciences, and Li and Fung Endowed Professor in Service Leadership Education at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is also Advisory Professor of East China Normal University, Honorary Professor of Guangdong University of Technology (Lifetime appointment), South China Normal University, and Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau, Changjiang Scholar (Changjiang Chair Professor), Guanghua Scholar (Guanghua Chair Professor) of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, and Fellow of the Hong Kong Psychological Society.

He has taught social work students at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels for many years. Because of his outstanding teaching, he has obtained several teaching awards in his teaching career. He was elected Best Lecturer teaching the major courses in the Department of Social Work (1995-1996) and Exemplary Teaching Award from the Faculty of Social Science at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2002-2003. He was awarded several awards in the QS Reimagine Education Awards, including two Bronze Awards under “Ethical Leadership” and “Social Enterprise” in 2016, a Silver Award under “Ethical Leadership” and a Gold Award under “Sustainability” in 2017, and the Gold Award under “Nurturing Student Well-Being and Purpose” in 2021. He and his team members were awarded the UGC Teaching Award in 2018.

Professor Shek has to date published around 150 books, 400 book chapters and 900 articles in international refereed journals. He is the Chief Editor of Applied Research in Quality of Life and past Consulting Editor of Journal of Clinical Psychology. He is a Series Editor of Quality of Life in Asia published by Springer and was an Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of Family Studies published by Wiley-Blackwell. He is an Editorial Board member of many journals, including Children and Youth Services Review, Journal of Adolescent Health, International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, and International Journal on Disability and Human Development. He was also a past International Advisor of the American Journal of Family Therapy and Editorial Advisor of British Journal of Social Work.

Professor Shek is a psychologist with multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research interests in positive youth development, family process, scale development, quality of life, programme evaluation, addiction and spirituality. His research project on the adjustment of Chinese people to midlife has been rated “excellent” by the Research Grants Council. He was awarded the CUHK Research Excellence Award 2007 by The Chinese University of Hong Kong. In the past decades, he has led a research project entitled “P.A.T.H.S. to Adulthood: A Jockey Club Youth Enhancement Scheme” (Project P.A.T.H.S.) which was financially supported by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust with an earmarked grant of HK$750 million. The project has been transplanted to schools in Mainland China with the financial support of Tin Ka Ping Foundation. The project was rated as “world leading” in the Research Assessment Exercise 2020. In collaboration with scholars in other places, the research team has developed the Malaysian, Korean, Sri Lankan, Indonesian and Argentinian versions of the curriculum materials. The Malaysian version of the program was awarded the Project of the Year (Industry category) of Malaysia GPM Sustainability Awards 2024 and five prestigious awards at the 17th European Exhibition of Creativity and Innovation, EUROINVENT 2025 (Gold Medal Award, Diploma of Excellence, and three special awards).

With his contribution to the field of quality of life, Professor Shek was awarded the Distinguished QOL Researcher Award by the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) in 2017. To honour his work on promotion of adolescent well-being, ISQOLS also established the “Daniel Shek-Wofoo Foundation Track for the Advancement of Adolescent Quality-of-Life Research”. In 2024, Professor Shek and his colleagues were awarded the 2024 APFG Outstanding Research Award (Researcher/Academic Category) by Asia-Pacific Federation on Giftedness.  In past years, he was named one of the world’s most cited 2% scientists by Stanford University and Clarivate. In the 2024 edition of the Research.com Top 1,000 Scientists in Psychology, Professor Shek ranked #3 in China. In 2025, Professor Shek was named an inaugural Highly Ranked Scholar by ScholarGPS, ranked first in Social Work and Chinese kinship research (top 0.05% of all scholars worldwide).