Engineering recipients of the awards for Outstanding Research Postgraduate Student (2013-14)
Miss CHENG Bing Qing (MPhil)
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Thesis Title:
Computer Simulations of Crystal Plasticity at Different Length Scales
Supervisor:
Professor A.H.W. Ngan, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Bingqing Cheng did her two-year MPhil study in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, after finished a bachelor degree in the same department. Under the supervision and guidance of Prof. A.H.W. Ngan, Bingqing first undertook a research project to investigate the plastic deformation mechanisms in nanoparticles using Molecular Dynamics simulations. One of the findings of the project is a novel plastic deformation mechanism during the morphology change of nanoparticles. This project has implications in the manufacturing, storage, and application of nanoparticles, and led to four research papers in international scientific journals. For the second half of her MPhil study, Bingqing teamed up with her labmates Mors Leung and Peggy Leung, and participated in the development of a new dislocation plasticity simulation engine. With tremendous help from their supervisor Prof. A.H.W. Ngan, the team managed to design, implement, and benchmark the new simulation engine within a short time frame of two years. The new simulation engine is able to predict plasticity behavior of crystals even at quite large deformations, which is an intractable problem using previous dislocation simulation technologies. For the studies related to this simulation engine, the team has already published three papers in reputable journals.
Bingqing established an interests in academic research. During her MPhil thesis project, she received systematic trainings in the analytical skills and in scientific writings, among other things. In addition, Bingqing narrowed down her research interests, and started to focus on computational material science especially at the atomistic-scale and the mesoscale. Since graduation in August 2014, Bingqing has been a PhD student at The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. In her PhD lab, Bingqing continue to develop skills that are essential to become an independent and critical researcher.
All the group members of Prof.A. H. W. Ngan's group attend the GRC nanomechanical-interfaces July 2014 conferences. At night the whole group went to have dessert near the sea side. Bingqing is the second one on the right in the second row, Mors is the first one on the left in the first row, and Peggy is the first one on the right in the first row.
Dr YANG Ying (PhD)
Department of Civil Engineering
Thesis Title:
Characterization of Broad-spectrum Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Wastewater Treatment Reactors through Metagenomic Approaches
Supervisors:
Professor H.H.P. Fang, Department of Civil Engineering
Professor X.Y. Li, Department of Civil Engineering
Dr T. Zhang, Department of Civil Engineering
Dr Yang's thesis presents original research work to reveal the profile of antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) in activated sludge (AS) samples collected from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) worldwide, and to continuously monitor ARGs in AS collected from a local WWTP for four years. Using the metagenomic approaches she investigated the fate of ARGs in influent, effluent, AS and anaerobic digestion sludge collected from a local WWTP, and thus estimated their removal efficiencies. She optimized the method used in metagenomic analysis and further develop an efficient platform for examination on the broad-spectrum profiles of environmental ARGs.
The philosophy and methods proposed in Dr Yang’s thesis have been widely followed in recent published works by the major research groups in this field and become a standardized pipeline. Most of the experimental chapters in the thesis have been published in reputable scientific journals or submitted for publication. The spread of ARGs is a worldwide concern. This study may eventually lead to better control of these emerging biological pollutants in environment.
Dr Yang’s academic awards include an Engineering Postgraduate Fellowship in HKU’s Faculty of Engineering. She spent six months as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, USA.
Following completion of her thesis, Dr Yang joined HKU’s Environmental Biotechnology Laboratory in the Department of Civil Engineering as a Research Assistant. In February 2015 she was appointed as Assistant Professor at the School of Marine Sciences at Sun Yat-Sen University, China.
Dr. Yang (center), Prof. Fang (left, supervisor) and Dr. Zhang (right, supervisor)
Dr LI Xuanhua (PhD)
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Thesis Title:
Plasmonic-Enhanced Organic Solar Cells
Supervisor:
Dr W.C.H. Choy, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Dr. Xuanhua Li obtained his PhD degree under the supervision of associate professor Dr. Wallace C. H. Choy in the Faculty of Engineering at HKU, are immensely researching in design and fabrication of organic solar cells (OSCs). OSCs stands for the third generation of photovoltaic cells to harvest the solar energy ascribed to their advantages both in materials properties and fabrication process. In view of the insufficient light absorption for OSCs surpassing the device performance for practical application, they proposed to design plasmonic nanostructures into OSCs to achieve highly efficient light harvesting. His work with the title of “plasmonic-enhanced organic solar cells” has been selected as the outstanding research postgraduate student (ORPS awards) for the academic year 2013-2014.
The remaining challenge in plasmonic-enhanced OSCs is how to improve OSC performance using plasmonic nanotechnology. In this study, two types of plasmonic effect: localized plasmonic resonances (LPRs) and surface plasmonic resonances (SPRs) have been systematically investigated. Both strong electrical effect and optical effect have been found when the plasmonic nanostructures have been introduced. The proposed OSCs with dual plasmonic nanostructures showed 9.1% power conversion efficiency, making it one of the best-performing OSCs reported at that time. Our study opens a promising light-trapping strategy for improving future OSCs performance.
He is currently a professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering in Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China. He would like to express his gratitude to the members of Faculty of Engineering for their strong support.
Dr CHEN Xiaoming (PhD)
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Thesis Title:
Analysis and Synthesis of Positive Systems under l1 and L1 Performance
Supervisor:
Professor J. Lam, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Xiaoming Chen received a B.Sc. degree in Automation from the Qufu Normal University in 2008. She obtained the M.Phil. degree from the Harbin Institute of Technology in 2010. From June 2013 to July 2013, she worked as visiting research fellow in the Department of Informatics, King's College London. Xiaoming Chen received Ph.D. degree from the University of Hong Kong in 2014. Dr Chen’s thesis introduces novel and significant results regarding the analysis and synthesis of positive systems. Her work is concerned with the analysis and synthesis of positive systems under `1 and L1 performances. It describes stability analysis, controller synthesis, and bounding positivity-preserving observer and filtering design for a variety of both discrete and continuous positive systems. She has derived computationally efficient solutions based on linear programming in terms of matrix inequalities, and a number of analytical solutions obtained for special cases. She has obtained necessary and sufficient mathematical conditions on `1 and L1 performance. Dr Chen’s thesis applies a series of novel approaches and fundamental techniques to the further study of positive systems, thus contributing significantly to the theory of positive systems which is a hot area in the control field.
Dr Chen’s research interests include robust synthesis, fuzzy systems, multidimensional systems, positive systems, filtering and model reduction. Her work has resulted in a number of articles in reputed journals and premium conferences. In recognition of her originality and scholarly work, she received the Zhang Si-Ying Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC) Outstanding Youth Paper Award in 2012, which is an award to inspire, motivate and encourage young scholars in their research. Only a maximum of two winners are given the Award each year. In addition, she was a recipient of the Engineering Postgraduate Fellowship (Faculty of Engineering), Mechanical Engineering Best Thesis Award, and Outstanding Research Postgraduate Student Award of the University of Hong Kong.
After graduation from The University of Hong Kong, Dr Chen joined the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) in October 2014. As a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in NUAA, she has been engaging in teaching and scientific research. Her current research is supported by the Innovative Fund of NUAA and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
