Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Benjamin Wan-Sang Wah ( zh, 華雲生) is the Wei Lun Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the

Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public university, public research university in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong. Established in 1963 as a federation of three university college, collegesChung Chi College, New Asia Coll ...

, as well as the former

provost Provost may refer to: Officials Ecclesiastic * Provost (religion), a high-ranking church official * Prince-provost, a high-ranking church official Government * Provost (civil), an officer of local government, including the equivalent ...

of this university. He was elected President of IEEE Computer Society in 2001.

Education

Wah was born in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

and graduated from

Queen Elizabeth School, Hong Kong Queen Elizabeth School (), or QES and QE ( or ) for short, is a secondary school in Hong Kong. The school was the first English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) (Anglo-Chinese) co-educational secondary school founded by the Government of Hong Ko ...

. He received his BS and MS in

Electrical Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, USA, then furthered his studies at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, obtaining an MS in Computer Science and a PhD in Databases. Wah began his teaching career in

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

in 1979. In 1985, as reported in the Purdue Exponent, he was forced to leave Purdue after being caught attempting to illegal copy source code for 4.3 BSD Unix, a violation of Purdue's source code license from AT&T. He soon joined the

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the fou ...

, where he served until his retirement at the end of 2011.

Career

In 1985-2011, he was the Franklin W. Woeltge Endowed Professor of

Electrical and Computer Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the

, USA. In 2008-2009, he also served as Director of the Advanced Digital Sciences Center in Singapore, a US$50 million research center established by the University of Illinois in Singapore in collaboration with the Singapore government's Agency for

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

Technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

and

Research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

. In 1998–1999, Wah was Chair Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at The

(CUHK), and in that year received an Exemplary Teaching Award. From 1999 to 2003, he served as adjunct professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at CUHK.

Research

Wah is an expert on non-linear programming,

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing ''signals'', such as audio signal processing, sound, image processing, images, Scalar potential, potential fields, Seismic tomograph ...

and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

. He has published numerous research articles in top professional journals, such as Artificial Intelligence,

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

Trans. in Computers, IEEE Trans. on Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE Trans. on Multimedia, IEEE Trans. on Parallel and Distributed Technology, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, Journal of Global Optimization, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. He is also the author of two books, and Editor-in-Chief of Wiley's Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering (published in 2008), and has contributed to many edited books and book chapters. He has served on many journal editorial boards. He also holds many Endowed Professorships and Honorary Professorships in leading universities in the United States of America and in Asia. Professor Wah was elected President of IEEE Computer Society in 2001. He was a member of the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong between 2005 and 2009 and Chairman of its Engineering Panel between 2006 and 2009. He has been a member of the HK Research Grants Council since 2011.

Awards

Professor Wah has received numerous honors and awards for his distinguished academic and professional achievements, including the Tsutomu Kanai Award, the W. Wallace McDowell Award, and the Richard E. Merwin Distinguished Service Award, all from the

IEEE Computer Society IEEE Computer Society (commonly known as the Computer Society or CS) is a technical society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated to computing, namely the major areas of hardware, software, standards and people ...

, the Pan Wen Yuan Foundation Outstanding Research Award, and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal. In 2011, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award in computer science from the

. He has been elected: *Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, *Fellow of

, *Fellow of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

References

press release by CUHKPersonal page, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120112034310/http://www.computer.org/portal/web/awards/merwin Richard E. Merwin Distinguished Service Award, IEEE Computer Society {{DEFAULTSORT:Wah, Benjamin Fellows of the IEEE Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Chinese electrical engineers Living people UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 2004 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery