Research Faculty
Head of the Department of Ocean Science
Chair Professor
Research Interests:
Ocean circulation and marine ecosystem dynamics and numerical ocean modeling in the China Seas; oceanic processes in estuaries/bays in the coastal waters, the South China Sea and Western Pacific basins; inter-disciplinary research in coupled physical-biogeochemical dynamics through numerical modeling, field measurement and process study in the China Seas.
Associate Head of the Department of Ocean Science
Associate Professor
Stanley Chun Kwan LAU
PhD in Biology
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Email: scklau@ust.hk
Research Interests:
Marine microbial ecology; genome composition, population genetics and ecophysiology of cryptic Escherichia in the marine environment; horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes; microbial source tracking of fecal pollution in coastal marine environment
David von Hansemann Professor of Science
Chair Professor
Peiyuan QIAN
PhD in Marine Biology
Univeristy of Alberta
Principal Investigator of Center for Marine Bioactive Substances
Email: boqianpy@ust.hk
Research Interests:
Marine Molecular Ecology focusing on omics and symbiosis of deep-sea marine invertebrates as well as marine biofilms; and Marine Chemical Ecology focusing on marine natural products for new antibiotics and non-toxic antifouling coatings.
Chair Professors
Research Interests:
Current research focuses on factors that control microbial (with the emphasis on cyanobacteria) biomass, diversity, production and metabolism in different marine ecosystems; microbial food web dynamics to biogeochemical cycling of carbon and nutrients in the ocean, and their relation to the global warming; environmental issues in Hong Kong coastal waters, such as harmful algal bloom and coastal hypoxia.
Fumin ZHANG
PhD in Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland (College Park)
Email: eefumin@ust.hk
Research Interests:
Marine Robotics and Autonomous Systems;
Mobile Sensor and Actuator Networks;
Bio-inspired Distributed Active Perception;
Human-Autonomy Interaction and Integration
Research Interests:
Climate Variability and Climate Change;
Aerosols and Clouds;
Tropical Convection and Tropical Cyclones;
Weather and Climate Modelling;
Remote Sensing
Professor
Sai Kit YEUNG
PhD in Electronic and Computer Engineering
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Email: saikit@ust.hk
Research Interests:
3D Vision and Visual Understanding; Computational Design and Generative Models; 3D Modeling and Fabrication;
Marine AI and Systems Design: Visual Understanding of Marine Environment such as Coral Reef, Marine Object Detection, Segmentation, and Tracking,
Underwater Navigation and 3D Mapping, Event Detection in Marine Videos, Multi-modal LLM for Marine Understanding, Camera Systems for Underwater Surveying, Sustainable Aquaculture
Associate Professor
Qinglu ZENG
PhD in Biological Sciences
The State University of New York at Albany
Email: zeng@ust.hk
Research Interests:
The role of bacteria and their viruses (bacteriophages) in marine ecological processes and the molecular mechanism of their adaptation to the environment; to understand marine ecosystem functioning from the molecular level.
Assistant Professors
Research Interests
Baroclinic turbulence over continental slopes, eddy-mean flow interactions and eddy parameterizations in numerical ocean models, detection and tracking of Lagrangian Coherent Structures via satellite altimetry records and model outputs.
Research Interests
Geophysical fluid dynamics, wave/eddy-mean flow interactions, global/regional/idealised numerical modelling of the ocean, inverse and data assimilation methods, high performance computing, applied mathematics
Charmaine Cheuk Man YUNG
PhD in Marine Science and Conservation
Duke University
Email: ccmyung@ust.hk
Research Interests
Microbial oceanography; understanding how environmental factors and anthropogenic activities influence microbial structure and functioning, characterizing microbial interactions at different trophic levels, studying algal viral ecology and genomics
Alex S.J. WYATT
PhD in Marine Ecology and Oceanography
The University of Western Australia
Email: wyatt@ust.hk
Research Interests
Linking oceanographic processes and the ecological structure and function of globally threatened marine ecosystems and species. Coastal biogeochemistry, coral reef ecology, mesophotic coral ecosystems, trophic ecology, isotope ecology, Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER), ecological engineering, and ecosystem restoration.
Research Interests
Biogeochemistry of lakes and oceans, focusing on the cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and redox metals; geochemistry and early diagenesis of sediments, stable isotope geochemistry, nutrient dynamics and phytoplankton ecology
Research Interests
Biogeochemistry and carbon cycling along the river-estuary-coastal continuum during the Anthropocene; Stable isotope geochemistry; Cycling of organic matter investigated by the molecular biomarker fingerprint and the state-of-the-art ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry; Big-data techniques (e.g., machine learning) and their application in marine organic geochemistry.
Longjun WU
PhD in Evolution, Ecology, Genetics, and Genomics
University of Rochester
Email: longjunwu@ust.hk
Research Interests
Evolution of marine animal biodiversity; Stress-induced adaptation; Ecological and evolutionary genomics; Developmental evolutionary biology; Evolution of cell types; Deep-sea adaptation.
Research Interests
Interactions of the biosphere and the geosphere; feedbacks of marine ecosystem to the change of environment; trace metal cycling and stable isotope biogeochemistry; microbial proteomics and transcriptomics.
Research Interests
Monitoring community dynamics using environmental DNA; Forecasting community dynamics using statistical tools; Environmental DNA analysis; Fish community; Microbial community; Statistical modeling; Machine learning; Nutrient cycling
Teaching Faculty
Cindy Ka Sin LAM
Assistant Professor of Science Education
PhD in Marine Environmental Science
University of Oldenburg, Germany
Email: envscindy@ust.hk
Teaching and Research Interests
Marine larval biology and ecology, allelopathy of marine macroalgae, marine biofilms, conservation of marine habitats and environmental field studies in Hong Kong. Actively involved in teaching projects related to active learning pedagogy and gamification, and other STEM projects in microplastics detection and removal process, ocean farming.
Cynthia Sin Ting Yau
Assistant Professor of Science Education
PhD in Zoology
University of Aberdeen, Scotland
Email: cynthiastyau@ust.hk
Teaching and Research Interests
Biodiversity, Marine ecology, Marine environment, Marine plankton ecology and Marine conservation
Teaching and Research Interests
Food microbiology and food safety, foodborne and waterborne pathogens.