CityUHK Academic Leaders, Fellows, Highly Cited Researchers, and Successive Presidents

This article catalogues the notable academic staff—past and present—of City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK / 城大): the academic identities of successive Presidents, masters in each faculty holding named chairs, and the cohort of scholars—led by materials science—who have been named Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate year after year. The emphasis here is on the scholars' own academic contributions and standing (fellowships, original work, international awards); presidential governance battles, contract-renewal controversies, and the like belong in the wild-history modules and are not treated here. For notable alumni, see ./notable-alumni.md; for composite biographies of key figures, see ./profiles.md; for a quick-reference table of fellowships and awards, see ./academicians-and-awards.md; for the founding leadership lineage, including the first Director, see ./first-vice-chancellor-david-johns.md; for a biographical sketch of the fourth President, Way Kuo, see ./fourth-president-reliability-scholar.md.

House-style note: serving and recent senior leadership (the Acting President, the recently resigned former President, the Chairman of the Council) are referred to by their titles only in the governance/wild-history modules. The present article sits in a neutral factual zone; when it mentions historical Presidents who have left office (Donald Bushell, Cheng Yiu-chung, Chang Hsin-kang, Way Kuo), it names them in accordance with the record and confines itself to the neutral, positive aspect of their academic achievements.

CityUHK traces its origin to the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, founded in 1984, and was granted university title in 1994. A young university barely into its fifth decade^※, CityUHK lacks the century-deep humanities and classical-learning traditions of the oldest institutions. Yet it has vaulted ahead in science, engineering and applied disciplines—especially materials science, electronic engineering, energy, and data science—through a formula of "recruiting world-class scholars + named chairs + highly cited output", breaking into the global top 100 in multiple rankings. This article unfolds in three layers: the academic identities of successive Presidents; the top scholars in each faculty; and the Highly Cited cohort.

# 1. Academic identities of successive Presidents

The President of CityUHK is not merely the chief executive; those who have held the office have generally been scholars of standing in their own disciplines. The table below notes their academic fields, not their governance records (for governance controversies, see the wild-history modules; they are not treated here). The current Acting President and the former President who has just resigned are, per house rules, referred to by their titles only and are not named in this table; historical Presidents who have left office are named.

Note: The fifth President (in office 2023–2026, resigned 24 April 2026) and the current Acting President are sensitive recent figures. In accordance with this archive's editorial conventions, they are referred to by title only; their personal academic backgrounds and governance records are treated under the corresponding title entries in the governance/wild-history modules. Cheng Yiu-chung later became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong; any controversies during his HKU tenure are HKU affairs and are not detailed here. For the founding journey of the first Director, David Johns, see ./first-vice-chancellor-david-johns.md.

# Chang Hsin-kang (biomedical engineering)

# Way Kuo (reliability engineering)

# 2. Leading Chair Professors across the faculties

CityUHK uses the Chair Professor and Named Chair Professor titles both to recruit world-class scholars and to recognise its own top faculty—the named chair is the highest academic honour the University can bestow (for the donations and mechanisms behind named chairs, see 06-people/alumni-network-and-advancement.md). Below, representative scholars are listed by discipline; for a full table of their fellowship titles, see ./academicians-and-awards.md.

# Materials science and chemistry

Materials science is one of CityUHK's strongest disciplines (around 39th globally in QS 2026, roughly 5th in U.S. News, roughly 19th in ARWU). This cluster produces the densest concentration of Highly Cited Researchers.

# Electronic engineering and systems science

# Mathematics, data science, and the humanities

# 3. The Highly Cited Researchers cohort (32 in 2025)

One quantitative footnote to CityUHK's academic reputation is its sustained performance on Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list.

• In 2025, 32 CityUHK scholars were named Highly Cited Researchers^※, placing the University second in Hong Kong and ninth in Asia by headcount; by proportion of total faculty listed, it ranked first in Hong Kong for the tenth consecutive year.
• That year, a total of 6,868 scholars^※ from about 60 countries and territories were named worldwide. CityUHK had 4 scholars listed across multiple fields; among them, Professor Xiongwen David Lou was named in three separate fields—a distinction achieved by only a tiny handful of researchers globally^※.
• Representative scholars flagged in the official announcement include: Zaiping Guo (Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering), Xiongwen David Lou (Chair Professor of Chemistry, named in three fields), Hua Zhang (Chair Professor of Nanomaterials/Chemistry), and Qichun Zhang (Materials Science and Chemistry)^※.

By way of comparison: CityUHK also had 32 HCRs in 2024, and 28 in 2023 (per the 2023 official announcement^※), stabilising around 30 in recent years. The HCRs are heavily concentrated in materials science, chemistry, and engineering—exactly matching the University's disciplinary strengths. For the full rolls of academicians, year-by-year HCR counts, and major award recipients, see ./academicians-and-awards.md.

This cohort illuminates a central thread in CityUHK's academic development: using materials science as the flagship, and leveraging Highly Cited Researchers and named chairs as the engine, to rapidly build international visibility within a short institutional history. Its representative figures are predominantly mid-career or senior scholars recruited from overseas over the past decade or so (Zhang Hua, David Lou, and Guo Zaiping are all relatively recent arrivals at CityUHK), rather than home-grown "old CityU hands" who spent their entire careers at the University. This differs from the "alumnus–faculty–President" triadic cycle typical of long-established comprehensive universities, and represents a characteristic pathway for a late-starting research university.