26/08/2004
Distinguished Leaders to be Awarded Honorary Doctorates
During its 12th Congregation ceremony, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) will confer honorary doctorates on five distinguished persons in recognition of their academic achievements, business leadership and contributions to society.
The five honorary recipients and the degrees they will be conferred are:
● Mr Ronnie C Chan, Chairman of the Hang Lung Group, Doctor of Social Sciences honoris causa
● Mr Philip N L Chen, Chief Operating Officer of Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, Doctor of Business Administration
honoris causa
● Dr Lee Shau-Kee, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Henderson Land Development Co Ltd, Doctor
of Business Administration honoris causa
● Prof Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, computer scientist and winner of the 2000 ACM Turing Award, Doctor of
Engineering honoris causa
● Prof Yau Shing-Tung, renowned mathematician and Fields Medal winner, Doctor of Science honoris causa
Mr Ronnie C Chan Mr Philip N L Chen Dr Lee Shau-Kee Prof Andrew Chi-Chih Yao
Prof Yau Shing-Tung
Mr Ronnie C Chan is Chairman of the Hang Lung Group, a leader in property developments and investment. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences, and serves on the governing or advisory bodies of several universities and think-tanks in Hong Kong and beyond. Mr Chan served as a member of the University Council from 1994 to 2004, and continues to offer advice to the University in his new capacity as Court member.
Mr Philip Chen is the first Chinese to hold the office of Chief Executive of Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. He has been Director and Chief Operating Officer of the company since 1998. He is active in promoting the tourism industry in Hong Kong, and is a member of the Hong Kong Tourism Board. A long-serving member of the University Council, of which he was Vice-Chairman from 2001 to 2004, Mr Chen has made invaluable contributions to the development of the
University. He now serves as a member of the HKUST School of Business and Management Corporate Advisory Board.
A leading real estate developer in Hong Kong, Dr Lee Shau-Kee is the founder of Henderson Land Development Co Ltd, and has been the Chairman and Managing Director of the company since 1976. He is also an enthusiastic supporter of educational development projects. Through his charitable organization, the Hong Kong Pei Hua Education Foundation, Dr Lee has helped build schools and donated scholarships to students in Hong Kong, the Chinese
Mainland, and across the world.
Prof Andrew Chi-Chih Yao took a PhD in physics at Harvard University in 1972 and another in computer science from the University of Illinois in 1975. In 2000, he received the Association for Computing Machinery's Turing Award, considered the Nobel Prize of computer science, "in recognition of his fundamental contributions to the theory of computation, including the complexity-based theory of pseudorandom number generation, cryptography, and communication complexity". He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He is currently William and Edna Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University. He will join the Center for Advanced Study at Tsinghua University, Beijing, this September.
Prof Yau Shing-Tung received his PhD in 1971 from the University of California, Berkeley, where his advisor was Prof S S Chern, the greatest living Chinese mathematician. In 1982, he became the first Chinese to receive the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, for his contributions to differential equations, the Calabi conjecture in algebraic geometry, and general relativity theory. He has received a number of prominent awards, including the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1994), the National Medal of Science, US (1997), and more recently, the China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award in 2003. He is a member of the US National Academy of Science, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He is currently a Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University and Director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The conferment will be conducted during the University's 12th Congregation ceremony on Friday, 12 November 2004, at HKUST.
Jacky Tsang Tel: 2358-6306 email: patsang@ust.hk
