Professor Joe Qin Sizhao, Chair Professor of Data Science, Dean of the School of Data Science (SDSC) at City University of Hong Kong (CityU), and Director of the Hong Kong Institute for Data Science, has been elected to the rank of Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). 

Professor Qin is the first CityU scholar to receive this distinguished honour while serving at the University.

The honour is the highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who demonstrates a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have had a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society.   

“I feel privileged to be elected a Fellow of NAI, which is an important recognition for me,” said Professor Qin. “I am grateful to the mentors and collaborators who have supported me for over three decades, both in the US and in mainland China. They have inspired me to do original research with societal impacts. I will use my experience to encourage and nurture more young talents in the SDSC at the University, which is the first independent school in the region pioneering in this field.”

Professor Qin’s research is interdisciplinary. He specialises in industrial data analytics, statistical machine learning, data science for systems, latent variable methods, high-dimensional time series modelling, model predictive control, system identification, data-driven control and optimisation, and energy and process systems.

For his tremendous contributions in data science, Professor Qin is also Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the International Federation of Automatic Control. 

The NAI Fellow program has 1,403 Fellows worldwide, representing more than 250 prestigious universities, and governmental and non-profit research institutes. 

Established in 2018, the SDSC is one of the first data science schools in the world dedicated to educating undergraduate and postgraduate students to serve the emerging demand for data scientists locally and internationally. It also supports CityU’s new Strategic Plan by aligning its operations with Smart City, one of the key themes and research areas identified for the 2020–2025 period.