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The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is truly grateful to have recently received a most generous bequest of HK$27,651,001.36 from Mr. Yao Ling Sun to set up two Yao Ling Sun professorships, one in Architecture and one in Surgery.

CUHK has chosen amongst the most distinguished faculty members, and has appointed Professor NG Yan Yung Edward and Professor LAU Yun Wong James to be the first incumbent of Yao Ling Sun Professor of Architecture and Yao Ling Sun Professor of Surgery respectively. The interest generated from the endowment funds will be able to provide additional and stable annual funding to the incumbent professors’ related research activities in perpetuity.

A Cheque Presentation Ceremony was held on 23 June 2014 to acknowledge the generous support from the Yao family. "The Yao family extended Mr Yao Ling Sun’s philanthropy and selfless devotion in education. The donation has made possible two endowed professorships in the School of Architecture and the Department of Surgery. The gift will foster academic excellence and enhance the strategic development of the University. It will go a long way towards enhancing the research in Architecture and Surgery at CUHK, thus contributing to the well-being of the people of Hong Kong and the wider world community," said Professor Joseph Sung, Vice-Chancellor and President of CUHK.

Professor NG Yan Yung Edward
Yao Ling Sun Professor of Architecture

Professor NG Yan Yung Edward is the Professor of Architecture in the School of Architecture, CUHK. He obtained his PhD from Cambridge University. He had worked as an architect before becoming a professor. His specialty is in Green Building, Environmental and Sustainable Design and in Urban Climatology for City Planning. At CUHK, he is the Director of the M.Sc. Sustainable and Environmental Design Programme, the Associate Director of the Institute of Future Cities (IOFC) and the Team Leader of Urban Sustainability and Public Health in the Institute of Energy, Environment and Sustainability (IEES).

As an environmental consultant to the Hong Kong SAR Government, Edward developed the performance based daylight design practice note; the Air Ventilation Assessment (AVA) Technical Guidelines; and the Urban Climatic Maps for City Planning for the HKSAR Govt. He is now working with governments and agencies in Singapore, Macau, as well as a number of Chinese cities on the same. Among many of his research interests, he is collaborating with public health colleagues to investigate the impact of city design and climate change on urban living.

In 2005, Professor Ng pioneered the idea of "Wu Zhi Qiao" and successfully built the 1st bridge in Gansu with CUHK and other university students, and professionals. Later in 2007, he found the Wu Zhi Qiao (Bridge to China) Charitable Foundation and was its Founding Chairman until 2013. In 2006, while still building bridges, Professor Ng led his architecture students and initiated the "A School To Learn" to build school facilities and to start an education assistant programme in Guangxi in South West China. In early 2014, noting the cultural and socio-economical needs of remote villagers in South West China, he established the One University One Village (www.1U1V.org) Project Initiative to continue his humanitarian work with his students. He believes that knowledge creates future. And it is the responsibility of the university academics to chart this future.

Professor Ng has published over 400 papers and reports, including 3 books. He has twice received the International Award from of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), he has also twice been given the UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Jury Commendation for Innovation Award. He was the recipient of the Red Cross Humanitarian 2010 Award. He was named one of the Asian of the Year by Reader's Digest in 2011.

Professor LAU Yun Wong James
Yao Ling Sun Professor of Surgery

Dr. James Lau joined the Department of Surgery at the Prince of Wales Hospital in 1991, first as a Medical Officer and then he advanced to the position of Senior Medical Officer and later Consultant in 1998. In 2006, Dr. James Lau joined The Chinese University of Hong Kong and in the following year advanced to the position of Professor of Surgery.

As an accomplished general surgeon, Professor James Lau has initiated and taken part in many valuable studies in collaboration with Professor Joseph Sung and the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics. The quality and impact of his academic work were of world-class. He has settled the controversy on whether open surgery or endoscopic therapy would be a better treatment for recurrent bleeding peptic ulcers. He has also started the use of intravenous proton pump inhibitor for peptic ulcer bleeding, which is now a common practice around the world. He has published three landmark papers in New England Journal of Medicine (2012 impact factor 51.658) as first author in 1999, 2000 and 2007 respectively and another three as co-author. Professor James Lau has become widely cited and gained an exceptional international reputation in his field.

Dr. James Lau was appointed the Director of Endoscopy in Prince of Wales Hospital in 2003 in succession to Professor Sydney Chung, the former Dean of Medicine. The yearly-held International Endoscopy Symposium is extremely popular in the endoscopy community. Surgeons and physicians working in the gastrointestinal tract from different countries regard the symposium as the "must attend" category and this symposium has put CUHK and Hong Kong in the world map of endoscopy. Under his academic leadership, both the quality and quantity of research output from the centre has been outstanding, his contribution has been instrumental to the continuous success of the Department and the Endoscopy Centre.
 

In 2000, Dr. James Lau went to Edinburgh for further training in Vascular Surgery. This decision was made in order to establish the service of Vascular Surgery at the Prince of Wales Hospital. At that time, vascular surgery service was provided by general surgeons. As a Hospital Authority consultant and a trained upper GI surgeon, Dr. Lau took up the job and successfully established a vascular surgery team at the Department of Surgery on his return to serve the public patients. Currently, the Team is covering the service of the New Territories East Cluster and accepting referrals across the territory and the quality of the service is highly regarded in the community. In recent years, endovascular treatment has become a possibility for patients who are too sick to undergo open surgery. The vascular surgery service, under the leadership of Professor James Lau, has been using their private fund to support some of the cost of the stents used on public patients. He has also solicited financial support from charity organizations in the community to help support some of the programs that are not funded by the Hospital Authority. These initiatives are solid proof to demonstrate his determination to service the public through his work as a surgeon in the public sector.

All in all, Professor James Lau has a remarkable track record in basic science and clinical research in GI surgery and GI endoscopy, clinical standing as a local expert in vascular surgery and gastro-intestinal endoscopy, as well as record of publishing in high impact international journals.

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (Hong Kong) (TECOHK) has recently pledged a donation of TWD7.5 million (equivalent to approximately HK$1.92 million) to support a project titled "Focusing on Taiwan: Health, Peace, Memory (2014-2017)" initiated by the Taiwan Research Centre (the Centre) of the Research Institute for the Humanities of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

Mr. Howard Huang, Director of Liaison Division, Mr. Sheu Ruey-horng, Principal Assistant Deputy Director of Liaison Division, Mr. Mak Shiu-kong, Deputy Education Project Supervisor and Mr. Tsung Tak-wei, Senior Project Supervisor represented TECOHK to attend the Memorandum of Understanding Signing Ceremony held on 18 June 2014. Professor Fok Tai-fai, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President of CUHK, expressed his heartfelt gratitude to TECOHK for their generous support, and the recognition we received for our efforts in pursuing excellence in academic research.

"With the objectives to promote scholarly exchange between Taiwan and Hong Kong, and establish long-term collaborations between CUHK and Taiwan universities, the Centre will organize a wide range of academic activities, such as inviting notabilities and renowned scholars from Taiwan to be the speakers of distinguished lectures, organizing conferences and workshops, conducting comparative study on the cultures of Taiwan and Hong Kong, and recruiting visiting scholars from Taiwan," said Professor Hsiung Ping-chen, Director of Research Institute for the Humanities of CUHK, at the Ceremony.

CUHK has been actively promoting academic research on the history and culture of Taiwan. In 2012, the Taiwan Research Centre was established to further strengthen the bondage of CUHK and Taiwan universities, and to utilize the strength of CUHK to coordinate interdisciplinary research on Taiwan.

Fei Ngan Tung Buddhism and Taoism Society (the Society) has generously pledged a donation of HK$2 million in support of a research project titled 'Daoist Ritual in Comparative Perspective' initiated by The Centre for the Comparative Study of Antiquity (the Centre) of the Research Institute for the Humanities of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). With the objective to conduct in-depth comparative study on traditional Daoist rituals, the Project will analyze the similarities and differences between the rituals found on classic Daoist Cannon and those rituals that are practiced in modern times in Mainland China.

At the cheque presentation ceremony held on 13 June 2014, Mr. Lau Chung-fei, Abbot of the Society, remarked that their organization has been putting extensive effort to preserve and promote Daoist culture, and supporting academic research projects on Daoism. He is delighted to collaborate with the Centre to explore the essence and beauty of Daoist rituals, and to promote traditional Chinese culture.

Professor Fok Tai-fai, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President of CUHK expressed his gratitude to Mr. Lau and the Society for their generosity in supporting the 'Daoist Ritual in Comparative Perspective' project. "Under the leadership of Professor Poo Mu-chou, Director of the Centre, I am certain that this will be a very fruitful partnership," said Professor Fok.