BIOGRAPHY

Prof. Lionel M. Ni has assumed office as the Vice Rector (Academic Affairs) of the University of Macau from January 2015. A world-renowned computer scientist, he is also Chair Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science. Prior to coming to the University of Macau, he was Chair Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). At HKUST, he served as Department Head (2002 to 2008), Special Assistant to the President (2010 to 2014), Dean of Fok Ying Tung Graduate School (2011 to 2014), and Director of HKUST China Ministry of Education/Microsoft Research Asia IT Key Lab (2004 to 2014). Before coming to HKUST, Professor Ni was a full Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University where he had stayed from 1981 to 2002. He was co-founder and CEO of CC&T Technologies, Inc., Michigan (1998 to 2001) and the program director of the U.S. National Science Foundation Microelectronic Systems Architecture Program (1995 to 1996).

Upon returning to Asia, Professor Ni has engaged in many activities in the Mainland, such as the Chief Scientist of the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) on Wireless Sensor Networks, Visiting Endowed Chair Professor of Tsinghua University, Visiting Endowed Chair Professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Overseas Assessor of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Expert Panel of the Natural Science Foundation of China, Member of Academic Committee of State Key Laboratory for Virtual Reality Technologies and Systems (Beihang University), Member of Academic Committee of State Key Laboratory for High Performance Computing (National University of Defense Technology), and Affiliate Professor and Founding Director (2008 to 2010) of the Institute of Advanced Computing and Digital Engineering, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Prof. Ni earned the PhD degree in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, in 1980. He has directed 54 PhD students to completion and has published many high quality papers in the areas of pervasive computing, mobile computing, big data, sensor networks, parallel architectures, distributed systems, high-speed networks, VLSI design automation, and parallel processing. He co-authored (with Jose Duato and Sudhakar Yalamanchili) the book “Interconnection Networks: An Engineering Approach” in 1997 by IEEE Computer Society Press. The second edition of this book was published by Morgan Kaufmann in 2002. His second book “Smart Phone and Next Generation Mobile Computing” (with Pei Zheng) was published in 2006 also by Morgan Kaufmann. His third book “Professional Microsoft Smartphone Programming” (with Baijian Yang and Pei Zheng) was published by Wrox in 2007. Most of Prof. Ni’s research papers were published in prestigious venues and his research papers have been highly cited for over 28,000 times according to Google Scholar with H-index 75. He is the owner of 8 US/China patents with more than 18 patents pending.

Prof. Ni is serving on the editorial board of Communications of the ACM and ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks. He had served as an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor (1985 to 1988); an editor for IEEE Transactions on Computers (1992 to 1996); an editor for IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (1993 to 1997); a subject area editor for the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (1987 to 1994); an editor of Journal of Information and Science and Engineering (1996 to 2002); the executive Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers of Computer Science (2006 to 2013); a program evaluator for the Computer Sciences Accreditation Commission (1989 to 1993); a member of Accreditation Committee for Computer Science Programme, The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (2006 to 2010); a member of the IEEE Computer Society Fellow Evaluation Committee (1996 to 1998, 2005, 2015); chair of the 1998 IEEE/ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award (the most prestigious award in the computer architecture field) Committee; a member of IT Projects Vetting Committee, HK Innovational and Technology Fund (2003 to 2004); a member of Engineering Panel, Research Grant Council, Hong Kong (2002 to 2008); Chair of the Steering Committee, Hong Kong R&D Center for Logistics and Supply Chain Management Enabling Technologies (LSCM) (2007 to 2011); and a member of Academic Committee, Hong Kong Scholar Program, The Society of Hong Kong Scholars (2010 to 2015).

Prof. Ni was elevated to the rank of fellow of IEEE in 1994 for his contributions to parallel processing and distributed systems. He was elected to the fellow of Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2008. He served as conference chairs or co-chairs of over 20 conferences, such as ICPP 2005, ICEBE 2007, ICPADS 2007, Percom 2008, and Infocom 2011. He served as program chairs or co-chairs of over 10 conferences, such as COMPSAC 1991, HPCA 1997, ICCCN 1997, and ICPP 2001. He has delivered over 50 invited keynote speeches at national and international conferences. He received eight Outstanding or Best Paper Awards at ICPP 1992, ICPADS 1996, ICPP 1996, ICEBE 2005, ICDCS 2008, MSN 2012, ICPADS 2012, and MASS 2014. In 1998, his paper “The Turn Model for Adaptive Routing” (co-authored with his former Ph.D. student, Chris Glass) published at the 19th Annual ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Computer Architecture was selected as one of the 41 most significant impact papers in the last 25 years in computer architecture area. He won the Michigan State University Distinguished Faculty Award in 1994; the Overseas Outstanding Contribution Award from China Computer Federation in 2009; the First Class Award in Natural Sciences for Research Excellence by the Ministry of Education, China in 2010; and the Second Class Award in Natural Sciences for Research Excellence by the State Council, China in 2011.