Awards and Achievements

The University works extensively in promoting and expanding opportunities for students to engage in research activities to strengthen their research capability and gain hands-on experience. In this issue, we are proud to introduce some of the high-quality work and awards received by our research postgraduate students, whose achievements shine across multiple disciplines in the international arena and local community.

Faculty of Arts

MPhil Student Wins ‘Best Debater’ in the Greater Bay Area Taxation Debate Varsity Competition

Renju Guo, an MPhil student from the Centre of Buddhist Studies, joined an HKU team and won the ‘Greater Bay Area Taxation Debate Varsity Competition’ held at the Zhuhai campus of Jinan University. This annual event, now in its sixth year, coincided with the fifth anniversary of the ‘Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area’. It invited participation from 24 universities across the Greater Bay Area, including HKU, Sun Yat-sen University, and the University of Macau.

Following several rigorous rounds of competition, the HKU participants secured the championship with their powerful arguments. The HKU team consisted of postgraduate students Renju Guo (Faculty of Arts) and Miqi Li (Faculty of Science), as well as undergraduate students Nachuan Dai and Xuan Niu (Faculty of Business and Economics), Jiayi Wen (Faculty of Law), Yichuan Zhang (Faculty of Science), and Ziqi Zhou (Faculty of Social Sciences). Renju impressed the judges with his seasoned and lively debating style, earning the title ‘Best Debater’.

Renju said the competition facilitated mutual understanding and learning among young people from the three regions, strengthening their integration. He is looking forward to pursuing the Greater Bay Area dream with his like-minded peers.

Arts Student Shares Insights in the Contemporary China Art Scene

Anqi Li, a PhD candidate from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, presented a paper at ‘Magical Metropolis – the Shanghai Surreal’, the 16th Annual Conference of the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts at Birmingham City University, UK, on 24-24 November 2023.

In her paper, Anqi investigated the prompt growth and sudden decline of the contemporary art scene in Shanghai’s West Bund area amid government-led urban renewal and art-driven gentrification. By investigating the role of both the public and private sectors in regenerating the West Bund and analysing these sectors’ manifestation within the case study of the Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum project, this research argues that the state’s decisive role in constructing the West Bund as a hotbed of arts and culture also extends to determining its longevity. Drawing upon the Bilbao Effect 2.0 framework termed by Anqi herself, this article examines cultural politics, urban studies, and discourses in contemporary art, offering new insights into the socio-political challenges that art museums in China face, a topic that has thus far been underrepresented in the existing literature.

In addition to her doctoral research, Anqi is also a curator. During the Arts Month of March 2024, Anqi curated the inaugural Supper Club, a new art event held in conjunction with Art Basel Hong Kong. She curated over 60 contemporary artworks from 22 esteemed local and international galleries. Supper Club received widespread acclaim, garnering attention from renowned press outlets such as The New York Times, South China Morning Post, The Art Newspaper, Tatler, and many others.

A Rising Star in Global Media and Society Study

Ignatius Suglo completed his PhD in China Studies at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures in 2022, focusing on the knowledge production and circulation of Africa in modern Chinese media. After graduation, Ignatius joined the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication as a postdoctoral fellow, where he designed and taught a global media and society course.

Ignatius has recently worked on his first book project, co-convened a collaborative research collective, and developed a second line of research focused on the history of digital media. He also focused on building academic networks in a new field and locale. He has been invited to several conferences and symposia by institutions such as Yale University, Harvard University, and Georgetown University, and he has also been invited to deliver talks and lectures at different institutions.

Ignatius published a paper that examines the intersections between new media and older media forms in the leading critical media studies journal Media, Culture & Society. He is also interested in multimodal knowledge production and has produced a podcast episode on global media. Looking ahead, he will embark on a new chapter in his career as an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Richmond in the US to continue his research on global media and society, and to contribute to the academic community through his teaching and mentorship.

Faculty of Architecture

Architecture Student Contributes to the CCA Exhibition

Putrikinasih R. Santoso, PhD candidate from the Department of Architecture, contributed to a virtual exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA). The exhibition titled Carbon Present is a collective project by the 14 participants of CCA’s Doctoral Research Residency Program (DRRP) held in the summer of 2022, of which Putrikinasih was a participant. The residency has been made possible through cooperation between the HKU Department of Architecture and CCA since 2019. Each year, the Department of Architecture nominates one PhD student to join this four- to six-week paid residency to explore CCA’s archival material collection as part of the student’s dissertation research.

Under the Carbon Present theme, the DRRP residents are studying how carbon has been historicised within modern architecture discourses in different geographies, climates, and communities. The exhibition, consisting of five sections, showcases how carbon has been shaping our world and our experiences of it through objects from the CCA Collection. For the Developing section, Putrikinasih collaborated with two colleagues from MIT and Cornell University in questioning the development and industrialisation processes in the so-called Third World. Focusing on the period between the 1960s and 1970s, they examined how these processes have transformed and modified the planet through voracious consumption and extraction of resources.

Faculty of Education

Education Student Shares Insights from Attending AAAL Conference

PhD student Chi Wui Ng from the Faculty of Education attended the AAAL (American Association for Applied Linguistics) 2024 Conference in March in Houston, Texas, US. The AAAL Conference stands as the preeminent applied linguistics conference globally. Chi Wu’s presentation focused on a very specific topic of Hong Kong English. During the five-day conference, Chi Wu had the opportunity to acquire the latest knowledge in the field, and he also met many old and new friends and teachers.

“Throughout the conference, it was not surprising to see that research on artificial intelligence in applied linguistics has been booming,” Chi Wu said. “While various AI tools possess the potential to aid teaching and learning, educators remain concerned about issues of plagiarism and information fabrication when using generative AI chatbots, especially in high-stakes assessments.” “Another takeaway from the conference is the imperative need to preserve minority and indigenous languages in this plurilingual world. Not only do those languages represent ancestral funds of knowledge, but they also serve as cites of cultural memory.”

Faculty of Engineering

PhD Student’s Paper Highlighted by Editors of Physical Review Letters

PhD student Lorenzo Giannelli and his supervisor Professor Giulio Chiribella from the Department of Computer Science recently published a paper in Physical Review Letters titled ‘Bell Nonlocality in Classical Systems Coexisting with Other System Types’.

The realistic interpretation of classical theory assumes that every classical system has well-defined properties, which may be unknown to the observer but are nevertheless part of reality and can, in principle, be revealed by measurements. Lorenzo’s study shows that this interpretation can, in principle, be falsified if classical systems coexist with other types of physical systems. To make this point, the team constructed a toy theory that allows for the violation of Bell inequalities in two-party scenarios, where one of the settings corresponds to a local measurement performed on a classical system alone. Building on this fact, the study shows that measurement outcomes in classical theory cannot, in general, be regarded as predetermined by the state of an underlying reality.

Lorenzo’s paper has been highlighted as an ‘Editors’ Suggestion’, which has an additional significance because only about one letter in six is highlighted as a suggestion due to its particular importance, innovation, and broad appeal.

The paper can be accessed at https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.190201.

LKS Faculty of Medicine

HKUMed PhD Student Attends an International Conference on Schizophrenia

Bok Man Perry Leung from the Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, is a second-year PhD student of the joint PhD programme with King’s College London. His research focuses on understanding the roles of different clinical, environmental, and genetic factors that could contribute to the development and prognosis of psychosis and schizophrenia.

Recently, Perry had his first oral presentation at the annual congress hosted by the ‘Schizophrenia International Research Society’ in Florence, Italy – the largest global conference in the field of schizophrenia. Perry was selected to present his unpublished work titled ‘Psychotropic Drug Exposure During Pregnancy and Development of Obstetric Complications: A Population-Based Study in Hong Kong’.

Perry was tremendously grateful for being able to attend various conferences with support from both the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at HKU and some conference scholarships from King’s College London. “I’ve always found conferences one of the best sources to generate new inspirations and broaden my knowledge since there are so many different subfields people are working on even within schizophrenia research,” Perry said. “In addition, attending various conferences allows me to have great networking opportunities with people from all around the globe, and these opportunities are particularly helpful to develop collaborations with other research teams to maximise the usefulness of the ideas and data we may have.”

Faculty of Science

HKU Study Reveals Crucial Role of Invertebrates as Eco-Custodians in Global Forest Litter Decomposition

A study led by HKU researchers PhD candidate Xiaoyi Zeng and Assistant Professor Louise Ashton from the School of Biological Sciences illustrates the significant contribution of soil invertebrates, specifically termites, to forest litter decomposition in tropical and subtropical regions. The study was recently published in Ecology Letters, and the results are imperative for preserving healthy ecosystems and conserving invertebrates in the wake of widespread environmental change.

“This study shows that invertebrates are essential for decomposition, keeping ecosystems working by breaking down dead organic material,” said Professor Ashton. “Invertebrates like termites are particularly important in the tropics and sub-tropics where most biodiversity occurs. Invertebrate biodiversity is threatened by human activities such as climate change, habitat loss, and pollution. It is essential we mitigate biodiversity loss in order to maintain healthy, functioning ecosystems into the future.”

The journal paper ‘Global Contribution of Invertebrates to Forest Litter Decomposition’ can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ele.14423.

(This article is adapted from https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/27283.html.)

Faculty of Social Sciences

PhD Candidate from Interdisciplinary Research Awarded Championship in Recent Climate Paper Competition

Man Hei Jeffrey Chang – a final-year PhD candidate from the Urban Climate and Air Pollution Laboratory of the Department of Geography supervised by Professor Yun Fat Nicky Lam – joined the American Association of Geographers 2024 Annual Meeting held at the Hawaii Convention Center in April 2024. During the conference, his paper titled ‘Integrating Geography-STEM Education and Numerical Modeling into Urban Microclimate Analytics’ was awarded the Championship (First Place) in the Climate Specialty Group (CSG) Student Paper Competition 2024. Jeffrey is the first non-US postgraduate student to receive this prestigious award since the competition’s inception in 1995.

In his paper, Jeffrey presented how his research team integrates urban extreme heat measurement, forward-looking infrared thermal sensing with drones, and numerical modelling to study urban extreme heat hotspots at Hong Kong’s high schools. By integrating urban meteorology measurement with high school education, this interdisciplinary and collaborative project aims to promote the advancement of ‘down-to-earth’ science and geography education, nurture our next generation of scientists, and most importantly, provide a high-quality fine-resolution meteorological monitoring dataset for urban microclimate analytic studies.

The award-winning paper originates from Jeffrey’s research outcomes from his project previously awarded the HKU Research Postgraduate Student Innovation Award 2023. Jeffrey would like to express his sincere thanks for the funding support from the Graduate School.

Sociology PhD Student Investigates Health Implications of Non-standard Employment in China

Wanying Ling, a first-year PhD student from the Department of Sociology, together with her co-authors Senhu Wang from the National University of Singapore and Shuanglong Li from the East China University of Political Science and Law, recently published a study in Social Sciences & Medicine. The paper, titled ‘Diversity Patterns in Non-Standard Employment and Their Relationship with Self-Rated Health in Urban China from 2010 to 2021’ investigates the health implications of non-standard employment within China’s rapidly changing urban landscape.

Utilising extensive data from the China General Social Survey, the research assesses how various types of non-standard employment, compared with unemployment and standard employment, influence self-rated health among urban Chinese populations. This study contributes significantly to understanding how different types of employment influence health outcomes and provides crucial insights for developing targeted interventions to enhance public health in urban settings.

First, it highlights the potential risks and benefits associated with non-standard employment arrangements in urban China by comparing the health of workers in these employment types to those in standard or unemployed situations. Second, it examines the evolution of non-standard employment patterns from 2010 to 2021, offering valuable perspectives that can help policymakers design effective labour protection and comprehensive welfare policies to safeguard workers’ rights and improve their health. Last, the study explores the intersections of non-standard employment with different socio-demographic groups over time, elucidating the complex dynamics that shape health disparities among diverse urban populations.

PhD Students Gain Valuable Experience at a Methods School in Singapore

Attawat Assavanadda, a PhD student from the Department of Politics and Public Administration, spent two weeks in Singapore participating in the IPSA-NUS Methods School last summer with support from the Hong Kong Government’s Reaching Out Award (ROA) and IPSA-NUS Travel Grant. By attending the courses Survey Methods and Mixed Methods Design, Attawat had an overview of state-of-the-art methodological practice and acquired useful techniques, which helped enhance his research abilities.

“Going to a methods school can be an excellent way to augment one’s research skills,” Attawat said. “Taught by renowned scholars from world-class universities, these courses helped students to pinpoint their research skills. The methods school was an ideal place to learn with scholars with different backgrounds and research ideas. I met and mingled with like-minded junior scholars. The two weeks of study at the methods school helped me to gain global experience and learn more about different cultures, preparing myself to be a global citizen.”

HKU Team Uses Cutting-edge Machine Learning Method to Characterise Relationship between Depression and Suicide Risk

Sijia Li, a PhD student supervised by Professor Paul Siu Fai Yip in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, has published a paper as the first author titled ‘Uncovering the Heterogeneous Effects of Depression on Suicide Risk Conditioned by Linguistic Features: A Double Machine Learning Approach” in Computers in Human Behavior. The research examines the psychological mechanisms that connect depression to suicide risk via linguistic characteristics on Weibo.

In this study, the research team employed the state-of-the-art double machine learning method to characterise the complicated relationship between depression and suicide risk and further interpreted the pathways from depression to suicide risk based on SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) values and tree interpreters. The team found that depression significantly increased suicide risk, while the effect varied across subgroups depending on their linguistic features. The high-risk subgroup of the depression group revealed higher usage of ‘Exclusive’ and ‘Health’ words. This implied that cognitive complexity and physical distress were related to elevated suicide risk among depressed populations. In addition, the low-risk subgroup demonstrated more usage of ‘I’ and ‘Leisure’ words, which indicated that lower self-focus and increased leisure activities were linked with decreased suicide risk among depressed populations.

The paper can be accessed at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563223004314.

Geography Students Win First Runner-up in the Kubuqi Award

Under the guidance of their supervisor, Professor Benjamin L. Iaquinto, Grace Hiu Ling Yeung and David Ho Cheung Ho represented the Department of Geography in participating in this year's ‘Kubuqi Award’ competition. Also joining the team was Ally Hei Lam Ho from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Together, their outstanding performance earned them the first runner-up position, along with a trophy, certificate, HKD 50,000, and a 6-day Kubuqi desert field camp trip.

The objective of the Kubuqi Award is to focus on global climate and environmental issues while promoting reflection on desert governance and sustainable development at the global and national levels. During the competition, they were required to design a travel plan for desert ecotourism, considering how to utilise desert resources and culture. Their proposed topic was ‘Kubuqi Vegetarian Culinary Experience Tour - Exploring the Desert through Taste’ (「庫布其素食烹飪體驗遊–舌尖上的沙漠」). Their proposal integrates the concepts and essence of ‘vegetarianism’, ‘green living’, ‘from farm-to-table’, and ‘multi-sensory tourism’.

Professor Jiangnan Zhu Receives Social Sciences Outstanding Research Student Supervisor Award 2024

Professor Jiangnan Zhu from the Department of Politics and Public Administration has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Social Sciences Outstanding Research Student Supervisor Award 2024. She has had a profound impact on her students’ academic paths and professional careers through her innovative teaching and deep mentorship. Her leadership in student supervision combines rigorous academic training with personal development, resulting in her students’ significant achievements, including publications in top-tier journals and contributions to impactful projects. She has successfully guided students in securing major research grants for key initiatives within China’s Greater Bay Area, demonstrating her prowess in grant writing and project design. In teaching, Professor Zhu equips her students with advanced quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. She also promotes interdisciplinary research and international collaboration, substantially broadening her students’ global exposure and professional networks. Furthermore, her mentorship reaches beyond academic realms, assisting her mentees in securing prestigious academic and professional positions, thereby ensuring their long-term success. The Faculty of Social Sciences commends Professor Zhu’s unwavering dedication to creating a nurturing and intellectually stimulating environment, which exemplifies the spirit of the Social Sciences Outstanding Research Student Supervisor Award.

Sociology Students Investigate the Causes of Unethical Research in China

Xinqu Zhang, a final-year PhD student from the Department of Sociology, published his study titled “Research Misconduct in China: Towards An Institutional Analysis” in Research Ethics. The work examines the potential institutional causes of research misconduct in China in the context of the Double First-class University Initiative by adopting criminological studies of organisational deviance and the sociological and organisational concept of cengceng jiama (downward acceleration of implementation pressures). This study concerns the Chinese universities’ top-down governance strategy in response to national demands and a certain level of granted flexibility for faculties and departments to implement stressful ‘publish or perish’ policies, which generate significant strains on faculty members. To secure their jobs, some scholars may breach academic integrities to survive academic performance assessments and get promoted.

The article can be accessed at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17470161241247720.

PhD Student Examines Tactical Changes Made by the Asylum Seeker Community in Hong Kong

A final-year PhD student, Ka Wang Kelvin Lam from the Department of Sociology, published an article in the Journal of Refugee Studies titled ‘Changing Tactics in Negotiating Refugee Assistance Policies and Practices: A Case Study of an Asylum Seeker-led Organization in Hong Kong’.

The article addresses tactical changes made by the asylum-seeker community in Hong Kong when negotiating with an assistance system that does not meet their needs. In the early years, asylum seekers in Hong Kong adopted a passive stance and tolerated the status quo. This changed with the formation of the first asylum seeker-led organisation in 2014. Thereafter, they actively voiced their demands to change the assistance system through this platform. In recent years, however, the asylum seeker community has adopted a pragmatic approach to advocacy, increasingly asking the local community for support in providing humanitarian aid rather than calling for changes to the assistance system.

Kevin pointed out that these tactical changes cannot be separated from the social and political contexts of Hong Kong. Understanding that it is unlikely for them to change the assistance system in the immediate future, and with the option to ‘exit’ not seeming viable, the group has responded by adopting a pragmatic approach (‘do what they still can’) and seeking to fill assistance gaps by mobilising community support, rather than remaining silent and tolerating the status quo. This tactical change can also be interpreted as an alternative form of ‘exit’. The study shows that ‘exit’ does not necessarily refer to a physical departure but can also refer to other forms of disengagement from the existing system in search of better opportunities or other viable options.

The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae018.

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