Team Leader

Prof. Rob LAW

Deputy Director and Chair Professor, Asia-Pacific Academy of Economics and Management

Prof. Rob Law is University of Macau Development Foundation (UMDF) Chair Professor of Smart Tourism. He is also Honorary Professor of several other reputable universities. Prior to joining the University of Macau in July 2021, Prof. Law has worked in industry organizations and academic institutes.

Prof. Law is an active researcher. As at April 2024, he has received 110+ research related awards and accolades (e.g. recognized as the most prolific tourism/hospitality researcher in the world over two decades from 2000 to 2019 – International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 2021), as well as millions of USD external and internal research grants. Prof. Law has edited four books and published 1,000+ research papers (including several hundred articles in first-tier academic journals). His publications have received 70,000+ citations, with h-index/i 10-index = 121/572 (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mRMgTLsAAAAJ&hl=en).  In addition, Prof. Law serves different roles for 200+ research journals (e.g. on the Editorial Boards of 62% of the Q1 journals and 80% of the Q2 journals in hospitality/tourism), and is a chair/committee member of more than 180 international conferences.

Research Team

Prof. Yuanjia HU

Professor

Faculty of Health Sciences

Dr. Yuanjia Hu is a Professor and Programme Coordinator of Medicinal Administration in the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, University of Macau, Deputy Director of the Medical Informatics Center of the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, and Associate Head of the Department of Public Health and Medicinal Administration, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau. Dr. Hu received B.Sc. degree from China Pharmaceutical University, Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Macau, and Guest Researcher fellowship in Austrian Institute of Technology. His research primarily focuses on providing informatics solutions to critical challenges in the process of drug discovery through the multidisciplinary lens of administration and technology. Dr. Hu has led 25 domestic and foreign scientific research projects, and published more than 150 academic papers in international journals such as Nature Biotechnology, Briefings in Bioinformatics, Pharmacological Research. He is also Deputy Secretary-General and Executive Council Member in Specialty Committee on Network Pharmacology of World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, Project Researcher in the Research Center of National Drug Policy & Ecosystem, and Policy Expert in Financial Innovation Pilot Platform of State Intellectual Property Operation Public Service Platform.

Prof. Li MIAO

Professor

Faculty of Business and Administration

Dr. Li Miao is a professor in the Department of Integrated Resort and Tourism Management and a UMDF (University of Macau Development Foundation) professorial fellow.  She is also an executive editor of the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research (JHTR).

Dr. Miao’s research focuses on interpersonal dynamics in hospitality and tourism experience, human-technology interactions at hospitality service encounters and recently, emerging hospitality and tourism behavior in the context of COVID-19.

Prof. Fangyuan CHEN

Associate Professor

Faculty of Business and Administration

Prof. Chen received her Ph.D. degree in Marketing from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Prior to joining UM, she had worked as an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Prof. CHEN’s research focuses on understanding non-human marketing entities using human-based theories, and investigating ways to improve consumer psychological well-being. She has published papers in top-tier academic journals such as the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. Her work has been featured in popular press such as NBC News, Science Daily, Forbes, and The Guardian. Prof. CHEN also writes opinion articles for the South China Morning Post.

Prof. Boby Ho Hong CHING

Associate Professor

Faculty of Education

Dr. Ching is currently Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at Faculty of Education in University of Macau. He received a PhD in Education from University of Oxford, with a specialization in Psychology and Education. Over the years, Dr. Ching has strived to weave theories from multiple psychological disciplines (developmental, social, and educational) and use empirical research to address theoretical and practical questions related to psychology and education. In Faculty of Education, he is committed to studying the cognitive aspects of children’s learning, such as how they learn mathematics, and their educational implications for mathematical assessments and instructional strategies for young children. Dr. Ching believes that education should not only concern students’ performance in academic subjects, but it should also care about students’ psychological well-being. Thus, his second strand of research broadly pertains to healthy self-development and education in adolescents and young adults. Finally, the third line of research originates from his interest in an idea called “essentialism”, which has close connections with how children develop an understanding of a concept and entails far-reaching implications for intergroup relations. He has published his work with his research group as a first author predominantly in SSCI Q1 journals (selected publications could be found in https://fed.um.edu.mo/boby-ho-hong-ching/). In recognition of the potential impact and contribution of his research to academia, he received an international-level research award from Jean Piaget Society and was nominated to join the Editorial Board of “Learning and Instruction”, a flagship journal in the field of educational psychology and education. Recently, Dr. Ching has joined the Asia-Pacific Academy of Economics and Management in University of Macau and he endeavors to use his knowledge in psychology to conduct research and understand virtual reality in smart tourism in particular.

Prof. Yunlu DAI

Associate Professor

Faculty of Health Sciences

Dr. Yunlu Dai is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau. He received his PhD in 2014 at Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (CIAC), Chinese Academy of Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Jun Lin. Then he moved to the University of Melbourne as a research fellow with Prof. Frank Caruso. In 2016, he joined Dr. Xiaoyuan (Shawn) Chen’s Laboratory in National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a postdoctoral. He initiated his independent research program in 2018 at University of Macau. His research focuses on the multifunctional hybrid nanomaterials for biomedical applications.

Prof. Li DU

Associate Professor

Faculty of Law

Dr. Li Du is an Associate Professor at the University of Macau Faculty of Law, Macau SAR. He holds dual bachelor’s degrees in both clinical medicine and law (Wuhan University, China) and a Ph.D. in law (University of Alberta, Canada). His teaching and research interests include international law, food law, technology law, data protection and privacy law. Dr. Du has led many research projects on legal and ethical implications of novel and emerging technologies, e.g., genetic testing, cell-cultured meat, synthetic biotechnology, smart healthcare, etc. He shares his research findings at international conferences frequently and publishes articles regularly in leading academic journals.

Prof. Alfred Seng Fat WONG

Associate Professor

Faculty of Science and Technology

Prof. Seng Fat Wong joined the University of Macau in 1998 and obtains his Ph.D. from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Prof. Wong is appointed as Interim College Master of Cheng Yu Tung College (CYTC) in 2021. Prof. Wong is currently an associate professor in the Faculty of Science and Technology (FST), and serves as an adjunct associate professor in the Centre for Macau Studies (CMS), an AEM fellow, an InstMC fellow, a CABE chartered fellow, an executive director in Smart City Alliance Association.

His research interests include Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics, Smart City, Enterprise Resource Planning Systems, Applied RFID Technology in Industrial Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Engineering Management, Knowledge Management, and Production Management, Innovative Product Design, Condition Monitoring System, Proton Electrolytic Membrane Fuel Cells, CAD/CAM Systems, Optical Instrumentation for Manufacturing Processes, etc.

Prof. Ze HONG

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Social Sciences

Dr. Kevin (Ze) Hong is a behavioral scientist who studies human behavior and culture from evolutionary and cognitive perspectives. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Grinnell College, a master’s degree in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Human Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University. He worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Zhejiang University and is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Macau and a research associate in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Research-wise, He uses methodologically diverse approaches (e.g., theoretical modeling, quantitative analysis of historical data, ethnographic fieldwork) to study human behavior and culture from rainmaking to gambling, with special attention paid to information processing at the individual level and information transmission at the population level. Dr. Hong serves on the editorial board of the interdisciplinary journal Human Nature, and his publication appears in diverse journal venues such as Current Anthropology, American Anthropologist, Behavior and Brain Sciences, Human Nature, Human Ecology, Religion, Brain & Behavior, Journal of Theoretical Biology, and Cognitive Science. His current field sites include the Yi in southwest China and the Wa in China-Burma border where he focuses on the psychological and social factors that sustain divination and magic practices.

Prof. Xin LIN

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Education

Xin Lin is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Macau. She received her Ph.D. in special education from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022. Her area of specialty in special education is mathematics learning disabilities. She aims to develop cost-effective interventions teachers can use with students experiencing mathematics difficulties. Recently, she obtained innovative results in knowledge forgetting, the roles of cognition, and prior knowledge on the maintenance of intervention effect and long-term mathematical development. As the first or corresponding author, she has published several academic papers in the top SSCI journals in education and psychology, such as the Review of Educational Research, Child Development, and Psychological Bulletin. She also served as a reviewer for the Journal of Learning Disabilities, Educational Psychology Review, Learning and Instruction, etc.

Prof. Hanyue LYU

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Law

Dr. Hanyue Lyu is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Macau. He holds a PhD in Law from Tsinghua University in Beijing, a Master of Law from Peking University, and an LLM from the University of Tübingen in Germany. His research interests include both fundamental theories of criminal law and the impact of postmodern technology on criminal law. He looks forward to working with academics in different fields to develop interdisciplinary research on legal issues related to smart tourism.

Prof. Yuqi SUN

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Prof. Yuqi Sun is an Assistant Professor from Department of Portuguese, FAH. She obtained her PhD from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) in Linguistics. Her research interests include Portuguese-Chinese translating and interpreting studies, pragmatics and L3 acquisition.

Prof. Shan WANG

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Shan Wang is an assistant professor at University of Macau. Her research fields are linguistics, teaching Chinese as a second language and computational linguistics. She has published one English monograph, more than 60 papers, edited one set of Greater Chinese textbooks, participated in the compilation of two dictionaries, and guest edited an international journal. She has produced and released 16 MOOCs of game-based Chinese language teaching (over 72000 views till now) and seven MOOCs of teaching Chinese multiword expressions. One was fully reprinted by China Social Science Excellence in 2019. In the recent three years, she won four academic awards appraised by different institutions: (1) Nominated for The Sun Dejin Award for Outstanding Papers of Youth, The 5th International Forum on Linguistics and Chinese Education, Columbia University, USA, October 2019 (this conference only has nominations). (2) The First Level Award of The Young Talent Award of The Third International Conference on Language Teaching and Research, appraised by the CSSCI core journal “Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies”, October 2020; (3) The Excellent Paper Award, The 12th Annual Conference of the Educational Linguistics Professional Committee of the English-Chinese Comparative Research Association of China, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, May 2021; (4) The Outstanding Youth Paper Award, The 17th International Conference on Chinese as a Second Language, Beijing Language and Culture University, July 2021.

Prof. Ye WANG

Assistant Professor

Faculty of Science and Technology

Dr. Ye Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Macau. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. from ETH Zurich and his B.S. from Peking University. His research has appeared at top-tier venues, e.g., CHI, IEEE S&P, WWW, AER P&P. His research explores the intersection of information security and smart tourism.