Prof. Yu WANG

Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Electronic and Computer Engineering
Funding Director of the Robotics Institute
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Michael Wang is the Funding Director of the Robotics Institute and a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Electronic and Computer Engineering of HKUST. He has taught undergraduate and post-graduate classes on design and fabrication of multi-functional structures and on advanced robotics.
Wang’s research focuses primarily on robotics, automation, multifunctional structure design, and additive manufacturing, with over 300 technical publications in these areas. He is a Senior Editor of IEEE Trans. on Automation Science and Engineering, and an editor for Computer-Aided Design, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, and Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering. He served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on Robotics and Automation, ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, and Assembly Automation Journal. He was the conference chair of 5th ASME Design for Manufacturing Conference in 2000, the Conference Chair (in 2006) and the Program Chair (in 2005) of the IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, the Program Chair of IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (2008), and the General Co-Chair of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (2011).
Wang has held other positions worldwide. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, A*STAR OAP Fellow in Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Guest Professor in Shanghai Jiaotong University and Haerbin Institute of Technology, Chang Jiang Chair Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Thousand Talents Professor at Xian Jiaotong University in China, and a Distinguished Visiting Scholar of University of Technology Sydney.
He received a Research Initiation Award from USA NSF (1993), a Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award from SAE in 1994 and a LaRoux K. Gillespie Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from Society of Manufacturing Engineers in 1995, and was a Boeing - A.D. Welliver Faculty Summer Fellow in 1998. He received the Kayamori Best Paper Award of 2001 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the Best Conference Paper Award of 2007 International CAD Conference & Exhibition, the Compliant Mechanisms Award-Theory of ASME 31st Mechanisms and Robotics Conference in 2007, and the Best Paper Award in Information (with P. Song and X. J. Wu) of IEEE International Conference on Information and Automation (2009). He was awarded the Distinguished Young Investigator Award from the Natural Science Foundation of China (2002) and the China State Natural Science Prize (Class II) from the Ministry of Science & Technology of China (2012). He was named Chang Jiang (Cheung Kong) Scholar by the Ministry of Education (China) and Li Ka Shing Foundation (Hong Kong) in 2005, and Distinguished Overseas Scholar by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2008. He received the Research Excellence Award of CUHK (2008) and ASME Design Automation Award in 2013. He is a fellow of ASME, HKIE, and IEEE.
A native of China, Wang obtained his B.S. degree from Xian Jiaotong University in China, M.S. degree from Pennsylvania State University, and Ph.D. from the Carnegie Mellon University. Before joining HKUST in 2015, he served on the engineering faculty at University of Maryland, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and National University of Singapore.