At its meeting held today (26 November), the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) Council approved the recommendation of its Search Committee to appoint Professor Way Kuo, Distinguished Professor and Dean of Engineering at the University of Tennessee, as its new President.

Mr Chung Shui-ming, Council Chairman, commented, "I am delighted to report that the Council unanimously approved the appointment of Professor Kuo. We are very pleased to have such a strong candidate both in terms of academic credentials, leadership in higher education and management experience to lead City University forward over the coming years."

The Search Committee agreed unanimously without reservation to recommend Professor Way Kuo as the next President of the University. Professor Kuo is an elected member of several prestigious institutions including the US National Academy of Engineering, Academia Sinica of Taiwan, an Academician of the International Academy for Quality and an IEEE fellow. He has exceptionally strong academic credentials and has held senior leadership positions and substantial management experience in both academic and research institutions. He has a proven track record in improving the quality of education, recruitment of students and professors and obtaining funding to embark on various initiatives and sustain their development at the institutions with which he has worked.

As part of the search process the Committee arranged for Professor Kuo to meet with a group of students and staff on Friday 23 November. Some 130 members were invited to attend and were asked to complete a questionnaire giving their views on Professor Kuo.

Mr Chung Shui-ming confirmed that "on a 5-point scale he was scored as 4.15 by all attendees on average. The results of the questionnaire showed overwhelming support for Professor Kuo."

Professor Richard Ho Yan-ki, Acting President, said, "Professor Kuo is an excellent candidate with an outstanding track record. CityU is lucky to have him as our President. I am sure that he is able to lead CityU to reach new heights."

"We are very impressed by Professor Kuo's drive and commitment to work with the various stakeholders in making CityU an institution of high quality," added Sixtus Leung Chung-hang, the Students' Union President.

The details of the appointment, including the date at which Professor Kuo will take up his appointment, will be decided by the Executive Committee of the Council in consultation with Professor Kuo.

Brief Profile of Professor Way Kuo

Professor Kuo is University Distinguished Professor and Dean of Engineering at the University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, US. He is a Professor of Industrial and Information Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering at UT and is an elected member of the prestigious US National Academy of Engineering, the International Academy for Quality and the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. He is also actively involved as a core member of the UT team collaborating with the prestigious Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

Professor Kuo was born in Taipei and received his BS degree in Nuclear Engineering from the National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan in 1972. He received a PhD degree in Industrial Engineering in 1980 from Kansas State University.

He worked for Bell Laboratories before joining the academic field. From 1993 to 2000, he was Head and Professor of the Department of Industrial (and Biomedical) Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Before he took up the current position in UT in 2003, he held the Royce E Wisenbaker Chair of Engineering in Innovation and was Executive Associate Dean of Look College of Engineering, TAMU, from 2000 to 2003.

Professor Kuo is renowned for his work in designing reliability for nano-electronics and for developing methods to reduce infant mortality. He is also well-known for promoting both the academic curriculum of relevance to societal needs and problems-driven research. He is holder of the Kuo-Liang Optical-electrics Corporation Chair of National Tsing-Hua University, and Honorary Professor of National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan; and Operations Research Chair Professor of Tsinghua University, Honorary Professor of Beijing Aerospace and Aeronautics University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Xian Jiao Tong University, and Central South University.