Tim Kwang-Ting CHENG

Biography

Prof. Tim Kwang Ting Cheng became the Dean of Engineering in May 2016 in concurrence with his appointment as Chair Professor jointly in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering and in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

He graduated from University of California, Berkeley in 1988 with a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. Before joining HKUST, he was a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he served since 1993. Prior to teaching at UC Santa Barbara, he spent five years at AT&T Bell Laboratories.

At UC Santa Barbara, Prof. Cheng had taken up various important academic leadership roles, such as Founding Director of the Computer Engineering Program from 1999 to 2002, Chair of Department of ECE from 2005 to 2008, Acting Associate Vice-Chancellor for Research in 2013 and Associate Vice-Chancellor for Research from 2014 to 2016 where he helped oversee the research development, infrastructure, and compliance of UCSB's research enterprise with over US$200 million extramural research funding.

A highly respected teacher-scholar and internationally leading researcher with excellent experience in fostering cross-disciplinary research collaboration, Prof. Cheng is a world authority in the field of VLSI testing and design verification, as well as an impactful contributor across a wide range of research areas including design automation of electronic and photonic systems, mobile computer vision, and learning-based multimedia computing. He had previously served as Director of the US Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Center for 3D Hybrid Circuits which integrated CMOS and nano-memristors for future computing systems. He has published more than 400 technical papers, co-authored five books, held 12 US patents, and transferred several of his inventions into successful commercial products. He is a Fellow of IEEE and his works are of high impact with due recognition from the field, including 11 best paper awards and one Distinguished Paper Citation in major conferences and journals. He was also recognized as the Top 10 Author in Fourth Decade Award and Design Automation Conference (DAC) Prolific Author Award at the 50th DAC 2013.

Prof. Cheng has been very active in providing professional services to the IEEE and to the academic community at large. Having served as the editor-in-chief of IEEE Design & Test of Computers, on the boards of IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation's Board of Governors and IEEE Computer Society's Publications Board, and on various technology advisory or working groups including the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), Prof. Cheng has been internationally known as an eminent member of the field.