Tony F. Chan’s Nine Years (2009–2018) — The Third Vice-Chancellor and President and His Subsequent Journey to KAUST

In a nutshell: Tony Fan-Cheong Chan (born 20 January 1952) was the third Vice-Chancellor and President of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), serving from 1 September 2009 to 31 August 2018^※ — a tenure of nearly nine years. During his presidency, he steered the university through Hong Kong’s “334” academic structure reform, lifted HKUST’s QS World University Ranking into the global top 30, and made HKUST the first Asian university to join both the Coursera and edX MOOC platforms. From September 2018, he became the third president of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)^※ in Saudi Arabia.

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# Who is Tony F. Chan? How did a grassroots kid from Shau Kei Wan become President of HKUST?

Tony F. Chan^※ grew up in a squatter settlement near the Shau Kei Wan quarry in Hong Kong. His family was poor; he describes himself as 「十足草根階級」 ("thoroughly working-class"). After his HKCEE (the Hong Kong secondary-school public examination), his first application to the prestigious Queen’s College was rejected. When a friend told him “there’s still an empty desk in the classroom,” he went to the school alone to offer himself to the principal, who was impressed enough to admit him. That episode of knocking on doors with sheer earnestness prefigures the proactive stance he would bring to new challenges later in life. On finishing secondary school, he was already admitted to the medical faculty at The University of Hong Kong, but under the spell of Nobel laureate Richard Feynman’s writings he turned decisively towards science and engineering, went to the United States on a scholarship, and eventually earned a BSc in engineering and an MSc in aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1973^※. He then entered Stanford University, where he obtained a PhD in computer science in 1978^※ under the numerical-computing specialist Joseph E. Oliger.

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# What academic and administrative credentials did he accumulate in the United States?

After his doctorate, Chan first undertook postdoctoral research at Caltech, then served as Assistant Professor and later Associate Professor of Computer Science at Yale University (1979–1986)^※. In 1986 he moved to the Mathematics Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)^※, where he became department chair (1997–2000) and the founding director of the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM, 2000–2001 — the institute is now regarded as a world-leading centre for applied-mathematics research), before rising to Dean of Physical Sciences (2001–2006)^※, overseeing more than 200 faculty members, roughly 1,400 students, and a substantial research budget. From 2006 to 2009, he served as Assistant Director of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) Directorate of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)^※, reporting directly to the NSF Director and managing an annual research budget exceeding US$1 billion (approximately HK$7.8 billion)^※ (based on the MPS appropriation for fiscal years 2006–2009). That posting gave him deep institutional understanding of the research-funding ecosystem and the triangular relationship among universities, government, and industry.

Sources: HKUST appointment announcement^※, Wikipedia^※

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# Why the president of “Hong Kong’s youngest university”? How did he emerge as the choice?

In 2009, the HKUST Council appointed Tony F. Chan as the university’s third president, succeeding Paul Chu^※, with an initial term of five years, effective 1 September 2009^※. At 57, Chan was the youngest president in HKUST’s history. The Council Chairman, Marvin Cheung, lauded him as a rare academic who combined “visionary leadership, top-tier scholarly achievement, and world-class administrative capability.” Chan’s edge lay in the combination of a solid research pedigree in numerical mathematics and computation — his h-index stands at 90, and he has long ranked among the most highly cited scholars in pure mathematics — with the cross-institutional resource-brokering skills honed at UCLA and the NSF. Add to that his Hong Kong roots and intimate grasp of the local education landscape, and he appeared the ideal candidate to blend global vision with local sensibility. By the time he took office, HKUST had already ranked in the top three of the QS Asian University Rankings for several consecutive years, handing him a high-starting platform.

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# The 334 academic reform and the MOOC first-mover: how did Chan reshape teaching and learning at HKUST?

The most consequential structural reform under Chan was the full implementation of Hong Kong’s “334” education reform — extending the undergraduate curriculum from three years to four. HKUST launched its four-year undergraduate programmes at the start of the 2012 academic year^※, redistributing learning space between general education and departmental electives, with the aim of producing broader, more well-rounded graduates. To accommodate the expanded cohort, Dr Lee Shau-kee donated HK$400 million^※ to support the university’s development; the university named the new campus precinct the “Lee Shau Kee Campus” and the “Lee Shau Kee Business Building,” which opened with a ceremony in 2013^※, providing the physical infrastructure for the four-year curriculum.

In digital education, Chan drove HKUST to become the first Asian university to join both the Coursera and edX MOOC platforms^※ (Coursera in 2012, edX in 2013 — counted as the earliest Asian participant on each), making HKUST’s academic content directly accessible to learners worldwide. He also actively championed technology-enhanced classroom practice, positioning HKUST as a testbed for educational-technology innovation.

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# How far did HKUST’s rankings climb over his nine-year tenure?

Before Chan took office, HKUST was already a strong performer in the QS Asian rankings, but had not yet broken solidly into the global top 40. After nearly a decade of steady improvement, HKUST rose to 33rd in the QS World University Rankings in 2012^※ and was holding steady in the 30–36 range on the global list around the time of his departure^※ (QS data; the 2015/16 release is one example). In the specialised under-50 league table, HKUST long held the top spot in the QS “Top 50 Under 50” ranking^※; in Asia, the 2011 QS Asian University Ranking saw HKUST claim the No.1 position for the first time^※ (it had been second in 2010). In employer reputation, HKUST also entered the top 13 globally in the THE employer-reputation measure^※ (circa 2018). In his departure announcement, Chan described HKUST as having become “one of the top universities in the world.”

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# What did he achieve in fundraising and the creation of named professorships?

Chan treated fundraising as a core presidential duty, and his tenure drew several substantial gifts. In June 2016, Mr Martin Ka-shing Lee, Vice Chairman of Henderson Land, donated HK$150 million^※ towards the construction of the “Martin Ka Shing Lee Innovation Building” — a planned seven-storey, 8,000-plus-square-metre facility integrating an incubator, industry-academia collaboration platforms, and interdisciplinary research centres. It was one of the largest single donations received during HKUST’s 25th-anniversary period. In 2013, the Li Ka Shing Foundation donated HK$20 million^※ to HKUST to broaden students’ global outlook and cultivate innovative leaders.

The results were even more striking on named professorships. When Chan arrived in 2009, HKUST had fewer than 10 named professorships^※; by the time he left, that number had grown to roughly 40 — a nearly fourfold increase over the course of his presidency. The KAUST appointment announcement described the achievement as “nearly tripling the number of endowed professorships.” These chairs provide annual supplementary research funds to holders and significantly strengthen the university’s ability to attract and retain top international academics.

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# How did he put HKUST on the world stage?

Chan deliberately integrated HKUST’s global positioning into his strategic agenda. From 2013, he attended the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (Davos) as the sole representative of a Hong Kong university^※, and later did so as a member of the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF), a body of presidents from 25 of the world’s leading universities^※, sitting alongside the heads of MIT, Oxford, Imperial College, and others — a role that markedly raised HKUST’s profile in international higher-education circles. At the same time, he expanded strategic partnerships with world-class institutions such as EPFL, Caltech, MIT, Harvard, and Oxford, and pushed the proportion of students going on overseas exchange beyond 50 per cent (up from roughly 30 per cent in 2009). Under his presidency, HKUST became the first Asian university to present its research on the IdeasLab stage at the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos.”

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# What was his contribution to Hong Kong’s innovation and technology policy?

Having personally overseen an annual budget of over US$1 billion at the NSF’s MPS Directorate, Chan understood the leverage that public research funding exerts on an innovation ecosystem. During his presidency he served on the HKSAR Government’s Steering Committee on Innovation and Technology^※ and actively lobbied for greater government investment in R&D. The Innovation and Technology Bureau was formally established on 20 November 2015^※; while the government has not made any direct attribution, there is a broad industry perception that sustained advocacy by academic leaders including Chan helped drive the decision. He also championed the idea of “bringing the incubator straight onto the university campus,” facilitating the establishment of joint laboratories at HKUST with WeChat (Tencent) and Huawei, and held up DJI founder and HKUST alumnus Frank Wang^※ as a living entrepreneurial role model. He repeatedly urged Hong Kong students to “erase the boundary between Hong Kong and Shenzhen in their minds” and to seek a broader stage in the Greater Bay Area.

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# Why did he step down six months early, and how was the decision received?

On 10 June 2017, Chan wrote to the HKUST Council to announce his resignation^※, one year before his second term was due to expire (2019), with the effective date set for 1 September 2018^※. In his statement he said: “now is the right time for both HKUST and myself to initiate the search for a successor,” adding that he wanted to leave ample transition time and “space for fresh ideas and long-term commitment.”

Some outside voices criticised him for departing irresponsibly early. Chan responded candidly: the average tenure of an American university president is about 6.5 years; having done nearly 10 years, he had already more than fulfilled his responsibility^※. Council Chairman Andrew Liao accepted the resignation, commended Chan’s contributions in strategic planning, fundraising, and campus development, and immediately launched a global search. In January 2018, the then Executive Vice-President and Provost, Wei Shyy, was appointed as HKUST’s fourth president^※, achieving a seamless handover on 1 September 2018. Chan later remarked, “Wei Shyy and I share a high degree of alignment in our vision; the transition was smooth.”

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# Why did he choose KAUST? What does it mean to lead a Middle Eastern university?

In April 2018, the KAUST Board of Trustees announced the appointment of Tony F. Chan as the university’s third president, effective 1 September 2018^※, succeeding Jean-Lou Chameau (the French engineer who had previously been president of Caltech). The appointment was not without precedent — Chan’s connection with KAUST dated back to 2007^※: while Assistant Director at the NSF, he had hosted the KAUST founding planning team for meetings in Washington, D.C., and he had been a member of the KAUST Board of Trustees since 2011^※. Taking the helm at KAUST meant leading a highly international research university barely a decade old — a campus community of roughly 7,000 people drawn from 111 nationalities, which he often called being “the mayor of KAUST.” He described the opportunity as "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity"^※. He is also the first Hongkonger to serve as president of a top-tier Middle Eastern research university^※.

Khalid Al-Falih, then Chairman of the KAUST Board and Saudi Minister of Energy, said:

“His outstanding record as a leader in higher education and innovation will help us accomplish our ambitious goals in this important time of national transformation.” —Official KAUST announcement^※

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# What did he do at KAUST, and why did he step down in 2024?

Chan steered KAUST to align itself with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 economic transformation agenda^※, positioning the university as a knowledge engine supporting national economic diversification. He broadened KAUST’s original four research pillars — energy, water, food, and environment — into emerging domains such as artificial intelligence and Smart Health, and added two new priority areas: Cyber Security and Circular Carbon^※, transforming the institution’s disciplinary profile from an energy-and-environment-oriented “four-pillar” model into a wider map spanning digital and health frontiers. In terms of scale, he set a target to increase faculty and student numbers by about 50 per cent^※, while ramping up investment and capacity-building in innovation, entrepreneurship, and knowledge transfer to fulfil the university’s “second mission”^※ (i.e., the commercial translation of research outcomes), and promoted strategic collaborations with Saudi Aramco, SABIC, Imperial College, and others.

After stepping down from the KAUST presidency, Chan continued his public role in education and research governance: he serves on the board of the Yidan Prize^※ (one of the world’s largest education prizes), taking part in judging top achievements in global educational research and development — a role that in some ways distils decades of experience moving between scholarly research, university administration, and research-funding systems, and extends the “top-level strategic vision driving educational change” stance he consistently held throughout his presidencies at HKUST and KAUST.

He also received the 2020 SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession^※ — a significant recognition of his scholarly influence during this period. In August 2024 he stepped down as president of KAUST^※, succeeded by the Australian neuroscientist Ed Byrne, having completed a full six-year term in the post.

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# How significant is his research and academic standing?

Chan’s mathematical research centres on the intersection of numerical methods, image processing, and scientific computing. The “Chan–Vese model” (for active-contour image segmentation), which he developed with collaborators, has been widely cited across medical imaging, video analysis, computer vision, and related fields; the relevant paper has garnered over 7,000 citations^※ (per Google Scholar), keeping him among the most highly cited mathematicians worldwide (ISI Highly Cited Author, Mathematics category). His scholarly output includes more than 200 peer-reviewed papers^※ (as of his 2009 appointment) and an h-index of around 90.

Key academic honours:

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