Founding President Chia-Wei Woo (1937–2025) — The Man Who Brought HKUST Into Existence Three Years Ahead of Schedule

Defining statement: Chia-Wei Woo (吴家玮, 1937–2025) was the sole founding President of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He spearheaded the decision to move the opening date forward from the planned 1994 to October 1991^※, and together with roughly 400 founding faculty members^※ built a research university from scratch within three years. He served as President from 1991 to 2001 and passed away in San Francisco on 2 March 2025 at the age of 87.

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# Who Was Chia-Wei Woo? Can You Sum Him Up in a Sentence?

Chia-Wei Woo^※ was born in Shanghai on 13 November 1937^※. He moved to Hong Kong as a boy and attended Pui Ching Middle School before leaving for the United States in 1955^※. He earned a bachelor's degree in Physics and Mathematics from Georgetown College, Kentucky, then pursued postgraduate study at Washington University in St. Louis under the physicist Eugene Feenberg, completing both an MSc and a PhD (awarded in 1966^※) in quantum many-body theory. His academic career spanned quantum many-body theory, statistical mechanics, liquid crystals, and low-temperature physics; from 1964 onwards he published more than 120 papers and books^※ and personally supervised 25 PhD students and postdoctoral fellows^※. This deep grounding in research was the foundation of the credibility he would later draw on when recruiting top scholars as equals.

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# What Was His Standing in the United States?

After his doctorate, Woo served as Assistant Professor of Physics at Northwestern University, rose to Full Professor, and eventually chaired the Department of Physics and Astronomy. In 1979^※ he became Dean of Revelle College and Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), accumulating university administration experience. In 1983^※, at the age of 45, he was appointed President of San Francisco State University (SFSU), becoming the first person of Chinese descent to head a university in American history^※ — a milestone that drew widespread attention in the Chinese-American community and brought him to the notice of the Hong Kong government as it searched for a founding President for HKUST.

During his tenure at SFSU (1983–1988), Woo left a deep impression on the city: Mayor Dianne Feinstein presented him with the Key to the City^※ in recognition of his contribution to local higher education. In 1984^※, he simultaneously served as President of the National Association of Chinese-Americans and acted as a liaison for the Chinese Olympic Committee, taking on a bridge-building role in Chinese-American community affairs and Sino–US sports diplomacy alongside his academic and administrative duties. This period equipped him with a rare cross-cultural administrative profile — adept at navigating the intersections of politics, diaspora communities, and academia — which he carried with him in 1988 when he relocated to Hong Kong to undertake the founding of a university.

At the time, San Francisco State was the largest single institution in the city, with over 26,000 students and more than 4,500 faculty and staff^※ — a management scale far beyond that of a typical liberal arts college. This experience became a direct dress rehearsal for the logistical demands of building HKUST from scratch. His record on affirmative action during his presidency was also unprecedented in the university's then 87-year history: three of the five most senior administrative positions were held by minorities or women, as were six of the nine dean positions^※. In terms of academic recognition, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences^※, and he received an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship^※. These forms of peer recognition within the academy, together with the societal milestone of being the first Chinese-American university president, confirm that his administrative standing was built on a solid foundation of research achievement.

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# How Was He Selected as Founding President?

According to Woo's own oral account, in the spring of 1986, Ian Macpherson (麦法诚), then Secretary-General of the government's Preparatory Committee, made a special trip to San Francisco to tell him that Hong Kong was planning to build a new university specialising in high technology and to invite him to join the Preparatory Committee^※ — the beginning of his connection to HKUST. In September 1987, while the Preparatory Committee was meeting in Hong Kong, Macpherson telephoned Woo to invite him to be a candidate for the founding presidency and interviewed him on the spot; the following day, the Committee resolved to appoint him^※. By his own account, he attended that interview still wearing the sweatshirt and white jeans^※ he had travelled in, having had no time to change into formal attire — a detail that speaks to the urgency of the decision-making and the Committee's eagerness to secure the right person.

H.S. Mak (麦法诚) was the founding Vice-President and had previously served as the Hong Kong Government's Secretary for Transport; he was also the person who gave HKUST its postal address at "Clear Water Bay, New Territories"^※. From 1988 to 1992, he and Woo worked in close partnership, alongside Vice-President for Academic Affairs Chien Chih-yung (钱致榕), forming the administrative core of the founding trio: Woo handled external fundraising and recruitment, Mak managed internal administration and logistics, and Chien oversaw academic and departmental planning. It was this three-pronged approach that compressed the entire build-up into a three-year timeline.

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# What Exactly Was the "Three Years Ahead of Schedule" Story?

The origins of HKUST trace back to 1985, when Governor Edward Youde announced in his Policy Address that Hong Kong would build a third university. In 1986^※, the government formally established a Preparatory Committee. The original timetable envisaged completion and opening by 1994^※. However, Governor Youde died suddenly in Beijing in November 1986, leaving behind a wish that the university be opened as soon as possible. In 1987^※, the Preparatory Committee resolved to bring the opening forward by three years to 1991, both to respond to Hong Kong's pressing need for technological talent and to honour Youde's wish. The decision compressed the entire construction cycle to under four years.

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# How Did They Recruit Enough Outstanding Professors in Three Years?

"Only first-rate professors can cultivate first-rate talent" — this conviction underpinned Woo's entire talent strategy throughout the founding period. Roughly 400 founding faculty members^※ were already in place when the University opened in 1991. The recruitment drive targeted mainly overseas Chinese scholars, including serving professors at research universities across North America, many of whom had been involved in the Diaoyu Islands sovereignty movement of the 1970s and were strongly motivated by the prospect of returning to contribute to the building of a Chinese society. A good number of these founding professors went on to become academicians and leading figures in their respective fields; their academic lineage can be traced in this site's entry on leading scholars. Woo and the founding Vice-President for Academic Affairs, Chien Chih-yung^※, divided the labour: Woo set the overall direction and led fundraising, while from 1 September 1988^※ Chien — acting as the "commander-in-chief of logistics" — threw himself into departmental planning, professorial recruitment, and campus design, remaining in post until 1 March 1992^※, when he stepped away having completed his mission.

Fundraising was equally central to this talent scramble. In June 1987, the Hong Kong Jockey Club made a one-off donation of HK$1.5 billion^※ for campus construction, providing the main financial foundation. The budget for academic buildings was also significantly increased, from an initial HK$1.2 billion to HK$3 billion^※, to ensure that both facilities and equipment met world-class standards. HKUST also claimed to be the world's first fully fibre-optic-networked campus^※ — a way of showing prospective scholars a research environment that was genuinely ahead of its time.

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# How Big Was HKUST When It Opened in 1991?

On 2 October 1991^※, HKUST formally opened its doors. The first cohort — 560 undergraduates and 140 postgraduates^※ (700 students in total, based on the 1991 intake) — arrived on the Clear Water Bay campus. The Phase I campus was designed for a capacity of 2,000 full-time-equivalent students^※; after the completion of Phase II in 1992^※, the addition of laboratories, halls of residence, and sports facilities expanded capacity to support roughly 7,000 students^※. The University opened with four Schools — Science, Engineering, Business and Management, and Humanities and Social Science — subdivided into seventeen academic departments^※. Notably, the School of Humanities and Social Science was given a dedicated allocation of 50 faculty posts^※, reflecting HKUST's interdisciplinary founding vision.

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# What Were Woo's Contributions to the Business School and Shenzhen–Hong Kong Collaboration?

Beyond science and engineering, the Business School was another strategic priority. Woo worked with figures such as the prominent community leader Sir S.Y. Chung (钟士元) to shape the School's positioning, nurturing its MBA and EMBA programmes towards international recognition. In 2007, the Financial Times ranked the HKUST EMBA programme No. 1 globally^※ — one fruit of years of development work. This downstream impact can be cross-referenced with the several Business School chaired professors documented in this site's entry on notable professors and academic leaders.

On the Shenzhen–Hong Kong collaboration front, Woo proposed the concept of the "Hong Kong Bay Area" as early as the 1990s, making him widely regarded as an intellectual forerunner of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area strategy. Two primary sources differ slightly on the exact timing: by his own oral account, the idea crystallised in 1994, when he compared the southern Pearl River Delta plus Hong Kong to the San Francisco Bay Area^※; other records indicate that he formally proposed the "Hong Kong Bay Area" in 1997, in an internal university publication and in his address at the Fifth Congregation^※. Both accounts point to the same core fact: the concept was born during his HKUST presidency, more than a decade before the Shenzhen authorities formally adopted the "Shenzhen–Hong Kong Bay Area" label (later evolving into the "Hong Kong–Shenzhen Bay Area").

In 1998^※, HKUST and Peking University formed an academic alliance; on 22 May 1999, the three parties (HKUST, Peking University, and the Shenzhen municipal government) held formal talks, and in August of that year the Shenzhen–Hong Kong Industry-University-Research Base was officially established^※. By the end of 2008^※, the base had incubated close to 100^※ technology companies, over 90 per cent of which were engaged in electronic information and IC design^※. The base employed about 2,000 people^※ and recorded annual sales revenue of more than RMB 300 million, with profits and tax payments exceeding RMB 50 million^※. The base's success paved the way for broader Shenzhen–Hong Kong synergy: in January 2006 the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee's "Document No. 1" formally proposed the "Shenzhen–Hong Kong Innovation Circle" concept for the first time; in March of the same year, Woo, in his capacity as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), jointly sponsored a formal proposal with two Shenzhen municipal leaders; in May 2007 the central government approved it and the two governments formally signed a cooperation agreement^※, elevating the Innovation Circle from a civil-society initiative to an official inter-governmental cooperation mechanism. He also facilitated the establishment of the Shenzhen-PKU-HKUST Medical Center in 2001^※, extending the Shenzhen–Hong Kong education and research collaboration into the medical field.

This track record in Shenzhen–Hong Kong collaboration was closely intertwined with the various establishment roles he took on from 1998 onwards: in 1998 he was appointed to the Commission on Strategic Development of the Hong Kong SAR Government and was elected that same year to the CPPCC National Committee^※; in 2000 he was appointed to the Council of Advisers on Innovation and Technology of the Hong Kong SAR Government and became Chairman of the Committee on Hong Kong–Mainland Technological Collaboration^※; he also served on the Hong Kong Government's Industry and Technology Development Council and the Supervisory Committee of the Institute of Biotechnology^※. This constellation of establishment roles enabled him to translate the scholarly vision of a "Hong Kong Bay Area" step by step into actionable mechanisms for cross-border cooperation.

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# "Creating, Not Replicating" — How Did He Define the HKUST Ethos?

Woo's most often-cited maxim was "creating, not replicating." This was not merely a rhetorical tagline but the touchstone for every major decision: curricula would not be copied from established institutions; campus planning would not follow convention; and the research culture would not be measured by paper counts alone, but by scholarly impact and interdisciplinary contribution. His son, the linguist Prof. De Kai Woo, relayed his father's declaration in a memorial tribute:

"HKUST belongs to Hong Kong, to our nation, and to the world." — Chia-Wei Woo (as quoted on the memorial website)^※

Prof. Nancy Ip (叶玉如), the eighth President of HKUST, worked under Woo from 1993 to 2001^※, a period of over eight years. She described him as:

"A man of extraordinary foresight, Prof. Woo envisioned and empowered HKUST as a catalyst for Hong Kong's transformation." — Nancy Ip, President of HKUST^※

Dr. Harry Shum (沈祖尧), Chairman of the HKUST Council, added:

"Prof. Woo was one of the few individuals with both grand visions and strong capability of execution." — Harry Shum, Chairman of the HKUST Council^※

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# What Honours Did Chia-Wei Woo Receive?

In addition, in 2001^※ HKUST formally named the Academic Concourse on campus the "Chia-Wei Woo Academic Concourse," in recognition of his immense contribution to the University's creation. After stepping down, he continued as President Emeritus and Senior Adviser, maintaining his connection to the institution. Behind this long list of honours stands a cohort of scholars who taught at HKUST during or shortly after his tenure and who themselves received various academician and fellow titles — see this site's entries on notable professors and academic leaders and the directory of honorary degrees and fellowships.

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# What Did He Do After Stepping Down? His Public Role Around the Handover

Woo's public role did not end with his HKUST presidency. Between 1993 and 1996, he was appointed a Hong Kong Affairs Adviser, participating in consultative work during the transition period before the handover^※. This role meant that while building HKUST and promoting Shenzhen–Hong Kong cooperation, he was also directly involved in the institutional bridging work that preceded the transfer of sovereignty. He later served as a long-standing member of the CPPCC National Committee and advised multiple mainland institutions, drawing on the political and academic networks he had accumulated across decades of shuttling between China and the United States. This aspect of his career also helps explain his prescience in proposing the "Hong Kong Bay Area" concept in the early 1990s — he was himself positioned at the frontline of trilateral Sino–British–Hong Kong policy communication.

According to the Chinese-language Wikipedia^※, Woo attended the "Second Affiliated Primary School of McTyeire School" in Shanghai as a young child, later studied for a time at Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, and eventually settled in Hong Kong, graduating from Pui Ching Middle School. This childhood and adolescent trajectory — spanning Shanghai, Taipei, and Hong Kong — in some ways foreshadowed the cross-regional, bridge-building role he would play throughout his life: from American academia to Hong Kong education, from founding HKUST to advocating the Greater Bay Area, all represented extensions of this cross-boundary coordinating ability. On the personal front, he and his wife, Yvonne Luo (罗淑仪), raised four children; the family kept a low public profile and relatively little appears in open sources about their private life.

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# "Shattering the Glass Ceiling": His Symbolic Significance in the Chinese-American Community

Woo's 1983 appointment as President of San Francisco State University was widely described within the Chinese-American academic community of the time as "shattering the glass ceiling in American academia"^※. Before him, no person of Chinese descent had ever led a mainstream American public university. The symbolic weight of this achievement went beyond personal success: it demonstrated that Chinese-American scholars could not only produce world-class research in the laboratory but could also excel in the highest administrative office of a large public educational institution.

While in the United States, Woo was active in the Chinese-American community: he co-founded a Chinese-language school with friends and joined the National Association of Chinese-Americans, an organisation initiated by the Nobel laureate in physics C.N. Yang (杨振宁), serving as its President from 1984 to 1986^※. This community engagement meant that even before he stepped into the HKUST founding presidency he was already a significant bridging figure connecting academic and policy circles in China and the US — a network that very likely was one of the key reasons the Preparatory Committee ultimately locked in on him for the position.

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# His Passing and the University's Tributes

On 2 March 2025^※ (Sunday), Chia-Wei Woo passed away peacefully in San Francisco at the age of 87^※ (born 13 November 1937). He is survived by his wife Yvonne, four children, and nine grandchildren. HKUST and HKUST(GZ) issued official condolence statements shortly afterwards. In March 2025^※, HKUST held a memorial service on campus and launched a dedicated memorial website^※ where alumni and members of the public from around the world could leave messages of condolence. HKUST(GZ) said in its statement that he "laid a solid foundation for the University," and interpreted the spirit of HKUST's creation as the spiritual source of its Guangzhou campus.

Chia-Wei Woo's life spanned Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the United States. A physicist by training, he built a world-class university from scratch in three years — a feat that to this day has few precedents in the annals of global higher education.

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