- Fellowship in 1998 at University of Cambridge
Wai-Ki Ching is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Hong Kong. He obtained his B. Sci. (Hons) and M. Phil. degrees from the University of Hong Kong in 1991 and 1994 respectively. He then received his Ph.D. degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1998. He was a visiting post-doc Fellow at the Cambridge University in 1999. Before taking up the lectureship at his Alma Mater in 2001, he was a lecturer in the Faculty of Mathematical Studies at the University of Southampton (2000-2001). He was awarded the Best Student Paper Prize (2nd Prize) in the Copper Mountain Conference (Colorado University and SIAM) U.S.A. (1998), the Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Prize in the Engineering Faculty, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (1998), the Certificate of Merit in the IEEE (Hong Kong Section) Postgraduate Student Paper Contest, Hong Kong (1998), the Croucher Foundation Fellowship, Hong Kong (1999) and Doris Zimmern HKU-Cambridge Hughes Hall Fellowship (2011). Doris Zimmern HKU-Cambridge Hughes Hall Fellowship (2011), 2013 Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Awards (Second Prize), the Ministry of Education, China (2014), Distinguished Alumni Award, Faculty of Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, (2017), Long Service award (15-year) (2017), Outstanding Reviewer for International Journal of Production Economics (2017), Outstanding Reviewer for Journal of Economics Dynamics and Control (2018), 2019 Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output (Team Member) Awards (Second Prize), Hunan Province, China (2019), Outstanding Research Student Supervisor Award, the University of Hong Kong (2020), World's Top 2% Most-cited Scientists (2021).
Ching's research focus is Mathematical Modeling and Applied Computing. In particular, the applications of stochastic models and numerical algorithms in solving problems related to Markov chains, bioinformatics, complex systems, data mining, epidemiology, financial mathematics and game theory. He is an author/editor of more than 350 publications including 6 books, 5 edited journal special issues, over 200 refereed journal papers, over 40 refereed book chapters and over 50 conference proceeding papers. Ching has reviewed papers for more than 70 different international journals. Currently, he has been an editorial board member of Advances in Decision Sciences, International Journal of Intelligent Engineering Informatics, East Asian Journal on Applied Mathematics and Journal of Applied and Computational Mathematics. Currently he is an associate editor of Enterprise Information Systems (Taylor & Francis). He has obtained over 4 million HK dollars research grants as the principal investigator (including RGC Competitive Earmarked Research Grants, External Consultancy Grants, Hung Hing Ying Physical Research Grants and Learnet Grant), and over 3 million HK dollars as a co-investigator.
Apart from academic research, he also committed in training high quality postgraduate students and currently he is supervising 5 Ph.D. students. Under his supervision, 11 M. Phil. students and 25 Ph.D. students have been graduated. His Ph.D. graduates got lectureships / Assistant professorships from world-renown universities such as Columbia University, Minesota University, Delft University of Technology, Fudan University, Renmin University, Xian Jiaotong University, SUSTech, and Hong Kong Baptist University and post-doc fellowships at Oxford University, Harvard University, ETH Zurich, John Hopkins university, Northwestern University, Copenhagen University and Max Planck Institute. His students also won the following awards: Excellent Student Paper Award in the 36th C& IE conference, Taiwan, (2006); Outstanding Research Postgraduate Student Award, HKU, (2007,2011); DAAD Summer School Travel Award, China, (2007); University Postgraduate Fellowships, HKU, (2009,2010,2011); Excellent Student Paper Award in the World Congress on Engineering, U.K., (2009); the 5th APBC Conference Travel Award, India, (2010); IMS workshop Travel Award, Columbia University, U.S.(2011), the Best Paper Award in CSO2011, Kunming, China (2011), IEOR Faculty Fellowship, UC Berkeley (2011) and Hung Hing Ying Scholarship, HKU, (2011), Best paper award in the 5th International Joint Conference on Computational Science and Optimization, Heilongjiang, China, (2012), Best paper award in the 5th International Conference on Business Intelligence and Financial Engineering, Lanzhou, China, (2012), The best paper award in the 6th IEEE International Conference on Systems Biology (ISB 2012), Xian, China, (2012), Best paper award in the 7th International Joint Conference on Computational Science and Optimization, Beijing, China, (2014), PIMS Student Awards (2016), SIAM Student Travel Awards (2016, 2017) and China's Excellent Young Scientists Fund (2022).
He has organized and served as program committee members in more than 70 conferences and workshops. He has presented over 100 talks. He also provided consultancy services to a number of local companies and the HKSAR government including PCCW, China Light and Power, Hong Kong Government Environmental Protection Department, Hong Kong Hospital Authority, ExchangeRepublic.com, Education Bureau and ETI Consulting Limited. He was a committee member of the High-level Advisory Panel of Chief Executive’s Award for Teaching Excellence, HKSAR government, (2016, 2021). He is a member of Public Examinations Board, Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) (2017- ), a member of Standards Committee, HKEAA (2017- ), a member of Curriculum Development Council (CDC), Education Bureau, HKSAR (2019- ), and a member of Standing Committee on STEM Education, CDC, Education Bureau, HKSAR, (2020- ).