- Fellowship in 2000 at Harvard University
Professor Albert Kong has a wide range of research interests in observational astrophysics. His current research focus is on multi-wavelength investigation of compact objects including black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs. These systems are laboratories for studying physics under extreme conditions and he is pursuing observing programs to understand the accretion processes in their vicinity. To this end, he has been very successful in gaining observing time on ground-based observing facilities and the Hubble Space Telescope for optical and infrared observations, as well as facilities spanning the electromagnetic spectrum from Gamma-ray (Integral and Fermi), X-ray (Chandra, XMM-Newton, Suzaku, and Swift), through to radio (ATCA) wavelengths. Furthermore, he is working on the next generation surveys including Pan-STARRS, Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Surveys. A significant fraction of his research focuses on time domain astrophysics.
With the launch of the Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope in mid-2008, we have entered a new era of high-energy astrophysics. Professor Kong is currently leading an initiative to organize a Fermi Asian Network (FAN) to promote Fermi science together with scientists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea.