IRIS

Prof. Ka-Wai Kwok

B.Eng, MPhil (CUHK), DIC, PhD (Imp Lond) Professor Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Tel: +852-3943-5328 Email: kwokkw@mae.cuhk.edu.hk

Ka-Wai Kwok received the B.Eng. and M.Phil. degrees from Department of Automation and Computer-aided Engineering (aka. Mechanical and Automation Engineering (MAE) currently), The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). In 2012, he obtained the Ph.D. degree from the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, Department of Computing, Imperial College London. After then, he was awarded the Croucher Foundation Fellowship 2013, which supported his research jointly supervised by advisors in The University of Georgia, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Currently, Ka-Wai is a Professor at MAE, CUHK. Before then, he served as faculty for Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), in 2014-2024. His research interests focus on surgical robotics, intra-operative image processing, and their uses of control and intelligent systems. He has participated in various designs of robotic devices/interfaces for endoscopy, and MRI-guided interventions. To date, he has co-authored >170 peer-reviewed articles with >80 clinical fellows and >160 scientists/engineers. His multidisciplinary work has been recognized with various (>10) awards in international conferences/journals, e.g. the largest flagship conferences of robotics, ICRA and IROS. He was the recipient of ICRA Best Conference Paper Award in 2018, and IROS Toshio Fukuda Young Professional Award in 2020. He also obtained awards in his early career for robotics, e.g. the Early Career Awards 2015/16 offered by Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong, Actuators 2020 Young Investigator Award, HKU 2019-2020 Outstanding Young Researcher Award, HKU Young Innovator Award 2020 and HKU Research Output Prize 2021-22.

Ka-Wai is the principal investigator of research group for Interventional Robotic and Imaging Systems (IRIS), which has (>5) inventions licensed/transferred from university to industry in support for their commercialization. He is also a co-founder and director of Agilis Robotics Limited aiming at advancing the interventional endoscopy with small, flexible robotic instruments and their intelligent control systems. His team successfully performed world-first transurethral robotic en-bloc resection of bladder tumours (ERBT) in live human in 2024. 

Research Fellows

Dr. Angel Siu-Yan Ng

Project Manager

B.Sc (HKU), M.Sc, DIC (Imp Lond), PhD (HKU)
Email: angelsng@cuhk.edu.hk
Research Interests: Fabrication of Nanomaterials; Electrodeposition; Photochemical Etching and Forming

Joe Ka-Ming Hui

Senior Research Fellow

B.BA, FMBA(CUHK), M.F.(THU)
Email: joe107c@hku.hk
Research Interests: Quantitative Finance; Blockchain; Artificial Intelligence

Dr. Bo-Hao Zhu

Research Assistant Professor

B.Eng (HIT), PhD (HKU)
Email: zhubohao@connect.hku.hk
Research Interests: Control Theory; Intelligent Systems

Dr. Xiao-qi Song

Post-doctoral Fellow

B.Eng, MEng (NUAA), PhD (HKU)
Email: xqsong@connect.hku.hk
Research Interests: Control Theory; Fault Tolerant Control; Switched Systems; Intelligent Systems

Dr. Yi-fang Zhang

Post-doctoral Fellow

B.Eng (CQU), PhD (ZJU)
Email: zhangyf@hku.hk
Research Interests: Control Theory; Intelligent Systems; Periodic Systems; Medical Robotics

Dr. Lin Lin

Post-doctoral Fellow

B.Sc. (ZJNU), M.Sc. (SEU), PhD (HKU)
Email: linlin0@connect.hku.hk
Research Interests: Control Theory; Logical networks; Markov decision process; Medical Robotics

Dr. Yamin Wang

Post-doctoral Fellow

B.Sc (SEU), PhD (HKU)
Email: u3004355@connect.hku.hk
Research Interests: Control Theory; Distributed Optimization; Cyber-physical Systems; Medical Robotics

Dr. Jing Dai

Post-doctoral Fellow

B. Eng (WHU), M. Phil (HKUST), Ph.D (HKU)
Email: jingdai@cuhk.edu.hk 
Research Interests: Robotics; Intelligent Systems

Justin Di-Lang Ho

Senior Research Fellow

B.Eng (UQ), M.Phil (HKU)
Email: jdlho@connect.hku.hk
Research Interests: Medical Robotics; Image-guided Surgical Navigations; Fiber-optic Shape Sensing; Minimally Invasive Surgery

Becky Tik-Sze Chung

Project Officer

B.BA (CUHK)
Email: tschung@cuhk.edu.hk

Dr. Yingqi Li

PhD Student

Email: liying77@connect.hku.hk
Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence; Computational Mechanics; Soft Robotics

Yifeng Hao

PhD Student

Email: haoyf@connect.hku.hk
Research Interests: Robotics