A Personal Perspective on Doing Good Research Seminar Series – Professor Raymond CHAN Hon-fu

About the Speaker

Professor Raymond CHAN Hon-fu

Vice-President (Academics) cum Provost
Lam Man Tsan Chair Professor of Scientific Computing

Biography

Professor Raymond Chan obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from New York University in 1985 and began as a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Then he returned to Hong Kong, first at the University of Hong Kong (1986-92) and then at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (1993), before joining the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1993. He was the Associate Director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (1996-98), the Associate Dean of Science (2004-09), the Deputy Director of the Hong Kong Bioinformatics Centre (2009-11), and the Head of the Mathematics Department (2012-18) there.

Professor Chan joined City University of Hong Kong as the founding Dean of Science in 2019. He was the Vice-President (Student Affairs) there from 2021 to 2023. He joined Lingnan University in 2024 as the first Vice-President (Academics) cum Provost. From 2020 to 2024, he was the co-Director at the Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-Cardiovascular Health Engineering.

Professor Chan has published 190 journal papers and authored 3 books. His book "Financial Mathematics, Derivatives and Structured Products" has been downloaded 110,000 times on SpringerLink since its publication in 2019. He has been in the Stanford Study of the World's Top 2% Scientists since the ranking started in 2019.

Professor Chan won a Leslie Fox Prize for Numerical Analysis in 1989 in the United Kingdom; a Feng Kang Prize of Scientific Computing in 1997 in China; a Morningside Award in 1998 in China; and the 2011 Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Award (First Prize) from the Ministry of Education in China. He is a fellow of the US Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the American Mathematical Society, the Chinese Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the International Academy of Artificial Intelligence Sciences. Professor Chan now serves on the SIAM Board of Trustees. 

Abstract

In this talk, I will share my academic journey across five Hong Kong universities, drawing on experiences that have shaped my perspective as a researcher and supervisor. I will reflect on approaches to research, learning, and problem-solving, and highlight the habits that underpin sustained academic growth — curiosity, perseverance, and openness to new ideas. My aim is to encourage postgraduate students to cultivate these qualities, enabling them to thrive in their studies and to contribute meaningfully to their future professional and scholarly endeavours.