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Tony F. Chan

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For other people with the same name, see Tony Chan.

Tony F. Chan
Tony Chan in 1988
3rd President of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Incumbent
Assumed office
1 September 2018
Preceded byJean-Lou Chameau
Nadhmi Al-Nasr (interim)
3rd President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
In office
1 September 2009 – 31 August 2018
ChancellorDonald Tsang
Leung Chun-ying
Carrie Lam
DeputyRoland Chin[a]
Wei Shyy[b]
Preceded byPaul Chu
Succeeded byWei Shyy[1]
Personal details
Born (1952-01-20) 20 January 1952 (age 72)
British Hong Kong
NationalityAmerican
Alma materSalesian English School
Queen's College
California Institute of Technology (BS, MS)
Stanford University (PhD)
Known forMathematics for image processing
AwardsNAE (2014)
IEEE Fellow (2016)
Signature
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science and mathematics
Institutions
ThesisComparison of numerical methods for initial value problems (1978)
Doctoral advisorJoseph E. Oliger
Tony Fan-Cheong Chan
Traditional Chinese陳繁昌
Simplified Chinese陈繁昌
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinChén Fánchāng
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingcan4 faan4 coeng1

Tony Fan-Cheong Chan (Chinese: 陳繁昌) is a Chinese American mathematician[2] who has been serving as President of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) since 2018.[3] Prior to that, he was President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology from 2009 to 2018.[4]

In June 2017, Chan announced his early resignation in September 2018 from HKUST.[5] In January 2018, HKUST announced that Wei Shyy was appointed acting president to succeed Chan, who took over the remaining half year of Chan's tenure, as he left the university earlier for foreign exchanges aimed at helping prepare for HKUST's future construction of an innovation building.[6][7] On 31 August 2018, Chan formally left his position as president following 10 years of tenure.

Early life

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Born in Hong Kong, Chan completed his secondary education at Salesian English School and Queen's College in Hong Kong. Chan received his B.S. in Engineering and M.S. in Aeronautics (both with Honors) from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University in 1978.[2][8]

Academic career

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Before joining Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, he was the assistant director of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at the US National Science Foundation[9] from 2006 to 2009. He pursued postdoctoral research at Caltech as a research fellow, and taught computer science at Yale University before joining UCLA as Professor of Mathematics in 1986.

He was appointed chair of the Department of Mathematics in 1997 and served as dean of physical sciences from 2001 to 2006. He was one of the principal investigators who made the successful proposal to the NSF to form the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, an NSF-funded institute at UCLA. He served as its director from 2000 to 2001.

He has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Mathematics by the ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson Scientific Company.[10] He also sits on the selection committee for the Mathematics award, given under the auspices of the Shaw Prize.

He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering, an IEEE Fellow, a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served on the editorial boards of many journals in mathematics and computing, including SIAM Review, SIAM Journal of Scientific Computing, the Asian Journal of Mathematics, and is one of the three Editors-in-Chief of Numerische Mathematik. He co-wrote the proposal to start a new SIAM Journal of Imaging Sciences and serves on its inaugural editorial board till 2012.

External appointments

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He is currently a member of the board of trustees of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, President's Advisory Council of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Scientific Advisory Board of the University of Vienna, International Advisory Board of Academic Ranking of World Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, board of trustees of Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia, RIKEN Advisory Council of Japan, and the United States Committee of 100.

He is also a founding member of The Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong, the president of the Hong Kong Institution of Science, a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences and a member of the advisory committee on Innovation and Technology of the Hong Kong Government.

He was a member of the selection committee for the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences in 2012 and 2013. He is the chair of Nevanlinna Prize Committee for the International Congress of Mathematicians 2018 (ICM 2018) (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

Honors and awards

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  • Member of the National Academy of Engineering, 2014, "for numerical techniques applied to image processing and scientific computing, and for providing engineering leadership at the national and international levels."
  • IEEE Fellow, 2016, "for contributions to computational models and algorithms for image processing".[11]
  • Honorary Doctorate, University of Strathclyde, UK, 2015.[12]
  • Honorary Doctorate, University of Waterloo, Canada, 2022.

Footnotes

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  1. ^ Took office as Deputy President and Provost.
  2. ^ Took office as Deputy President and Provost; position later renamed as Executive Vice-President and Provost in 2013.

References

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  1. ^ "KUST Appoints Professor Shyy Wei As Fourth President". Asian Scientist. 19 January 2018.
  2. ^ a b "Biography of Prof Tony Chan, HKUST Designate" (PDF). March 2009.
  3. ^ Ellie Bothwell (1 May 2018). "Tony Chan appointed as next KAUST president: HKUST head to lead Saudi Arabian university from September". Times Higher Education.
  4. ^ "HKUST Announces Appointment of Prof. Tony Chan as Next President".
  5. ^ "Hong Kong University of Science and Technology president to step down early in September 2018". South China Morning Post. 10 June 2017.
  6. ^ "科大陳繁昌突再提早7個月「卸任」 首副史維任署理校長". HK01. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
  7. ^ "Virtual highflier set to become UST president". The Standard. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  8. ^ Chan, Tony Fan-cheong (1978). Comparison of numerical methods for initial value problems (Ph.D.). Stanford University. OCLC 4774091 – via ProQuest.
  9. ^ "Tony F. Chan".
  10. ^ ISI Highly Cited Author – Tony F. Chan Archived 19 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ "2016 Newly Elevated Fellows", IEEE, 2016.
  12. ^ "Bio of Tony F Chan".
[edit]
Academic offices
Preceded by 3rd President of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
2009 – 2018 		Succeeded by
Preceded by 3rd President of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
2018 – present 		Incumbent
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