Alfonso Ngan

Short Bio:

Professor Alfonso H.W. Ngan is currently Kingboard Professor in Materials Engineering, Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, as well as Associate Dean of Engineering, at the University of Hong Kong. He obtained his BSc(Eng) degree from the University of Hong Kong in 1989, and PhD from the University of Birmingham in the U.K. in 1992. After a year of postdoctoral training at Oxford University, he joined HKU as a Lecturer in 1993, and was promoted through the ranks to Chair Professorship in 2011. Professor Ngan’s research work is focused on the microstructural basis of properties of engineering materials, and, in particular, crystalline defects and their modeling, and more recently, nanomechanics including applications to biological systems. He has published over 180 ISI papers, and co-authored two books. His research-related honours include the prestigious Rosenhain Medal and Prize from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, U.K., in 2007 – he is the only non-British national so far to receive this award since its establishment in 1951. He was also awarded a higher doctorate (DSc) from his alma mater the University of Birmingham in 2008, and the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship in 2009 which is perhaps the highest honour awarded to academics in Hong Kong. In 2014, he was elected to the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences. He is a well sought-after journal reviewer and he won the Outstanding Reviewer Award of Scripta Materialia three times, in 2006, 2008 and 2011. He has organized a number of key conferences, including Dislocations 2008 and Gordon Research Conference on Nanomechanical Interfaces in 2013, both held in Hong Kong. He will serve as one of four Meeting Chairs in the Materials Research Society 2017 Spring Meeting to be held in the USA.