Internationally renowned Chinese-American scholar Professor Wei Zhao has been appointed the eighth Rector of the University of Macau (UM) commencing on 10 November 2008. At the same time as taking up the new rectorship, he is also appointed the first Chair Professor of the University of Macau. Before joining the University of Macau, Professor Zhao served as the Dean of the School of Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Director for the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the U.S. National Science Foundation, and Senior Associate Vice President for Research at Texas A&M University. Professor Zhao completed his undergraduate programme in physics at Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China, in 1977, and he later received his MSc and PhD degrees in Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, in 1983 and 1986 respectively. During his academic career, he has also worked as a faculty member at Shaanxi Normal University, Amherst College, University of Adelaide, Texas A&M University, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Since the 1980s, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students have travelled to America to work and study, but very few attained such high achievements as Professor Zhao, who served as senior research and education administrator in the U.S. comprehensive universities and a senior official of a U.S. federal government agency. In Hong Kong and Macao region, he was the first Mainland Chinese who was appointed the university rector through global recruitment. While he was in the United States, Professor Zhao engaged actively in various activities for education and research exchange with the People's Republic of China. He was the founding chair of the US-China Dragon Star Committee, Overseas Advisory Committee for Shanghai Jiaotong University Electronics and Information Technology College, and Overseas Advisory Committee for the Higher Education Press (in the field of Computer Science). In 2005, he was awarded the Lifelong Achievement Award by the Chinese Association of Science and Technology (CAST USA). In 2007, he was honored with the Overseas Achievement Award by the Chinese Computer Federation.
As an IEEE Fellow, Professor Zhao has made significant contributions in distributed computing, real-time systems, computer networks, and cyberspace security. His research group has been well recognized and received numerous awards and prizes including the outstanding paper award from the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, the best paper award from the IEEE National Aerospace and Electronics Conference, and an award on technology transfer from the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency. In 2007, he received the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems Outstanding Achievement Award. Professor Zhao is the holder of two US patents and has published over 300 papers in journals, conferences, and book chapters.
Professor Zhao is also an outstanding leader in professional services. He has served on editorial boards of technical journals, including the IEEE Transactions on Computers and the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems. He is the chair for the IEEE Technical Committee of Real-Time Systems. He has chaired more than ten international conferences including the IEEE Real-Time Technology and Applications Symposia, the IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposia, and the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems.
Professor Zhao has had extensive administration experience in higher education and research management. While serving as the head of the Department of Computer Science between 1997 and 2001, the funding for sponsored research quadrupled and the undergraduate programme was ranked the 17th in a national survey. He was also responsible for setting up the "Texas A&M Centre for Information Assurance and Security" and was appointed the founding director. The Centre was acclaimed by the U.S. National Security Agency as the Centre for Academic Excellence. During his assignment at the National Science Foundation, funding of his division increased 20%, the dwell time performance improved 24%, and the number of submitted proposals increased by 14%. Having been serving as the Rector of the University of Macau for merely a few months, Professor Zhao has successfully led the University to establish the first Honours College in Macao with its prime focus on educating academically talented and committed students and fostering them into outstanding elites and promising leaders of society. Professor Zhao further implements educational reform which includes creating the undergraduate research programme with emphasis on research innovation. He also launches a series of faculty development initiatives to elevate our faculty and build the University brand so as to enhance the University's position as a first-class university.
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