Former UM Aerospace Engineering Department Chair Wei Shyy has been appointed the next president of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Dr. Shyy is currently the institution’s provost, executive vice-president, and chair professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
Before joining HKUST in 2010, Professor Shyy was Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson Collegiate Professor and Chair of UM’s Department of Aerospace Engineering from 2005 to 2010. He also received his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from UM Aerospace Engineering, and his research interests are computational fluid dynamics and heat/mass transfer, energy and power, moving boundary problems, biofluid dynamics, biological and micro air vehicles, and surrogate modeling and optimization.
In his time at the University of Michigan, Dr. Shyy made several notable contributions to research and education. From 2006 to 2010, he was the principal investigator for the Michigan/AFRL/Boeing Collaborative Center in Aeronautical Sciences (MAB-CCAS), an effort to research computational aeronautical sciences sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory. From 2007 to 2010, he was also the principal investigator for the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) project on Biologically-Inspired, Anisotropic Flexible Wing for Optimal Flapping Flight, sponsored by the Department of Defense. Professor Shyy won The Engineers’ Council Distinguished Educator Award in 2009.
A committee dedicated to the search for a new president was formed after HKUST announced that current president Tony Chan Fan-Cheong will step down in August 2018. The committee approved Prof. Shyy’s appointment on Thursday, January 18th, 2018. On September 1st, 2018, Wei Shyy will assume his role as president of HKUST.
Editor’s Note: this article was originally posted on January 16th, 2018 and has since been updated to reflect Professor Shyy’s appointment.
