UQ Global Chinese Alumni Association

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Meet your Honorary Advisory Board Members

Professor Max Lu AO

Title: President and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Surrey
Honorary Chair of the Advisory Board of UQGCAA

Biography: Professor Max Lu has been President and Vice-Chancellor of University of Surrey since April 2016. Previously he was Provost and Senior Vice-President at The University of Queensland, Australia.

 He is a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology, and serves as Director of the Boards of UK Research and Innovation and National Physical Laboratory, and as a member of the Leadership Council of the National Centre for Universities and Business.  He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey and active in many local arts, charitable and community organisations.

 Professor Lu lectured at Nanyang Technological University from 1991 to 1994, and held academic and leadership positions at The University of Queensland from 1994 to 2016, rising from senior lecturer to chair professor. He founded the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials and served as its inaugural director for eight years. He was awarded the Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship in 2003 and 2008.

 As a double Highly Cited Researcher in both Materials Science and Chemistry he has published over 500 journal papers on nanomaterials (h=149 and over 90,000 citations @Google Scholar). He is co-inventor of 25 granted international patents.  He has been honoured with numerous awards including Orica Award, RK Murphy Medal, Le Fevre Prize, ExxonMobil Award, China International Science and Technology Award, Japan Chemical Society Lecture Award, Chemeca Medal, and P.V. Danckwerts Lecture.

 He was honoured with a Medal of the Order of Australia (Officer in the General Division) for his distinguished service to education and international research. Professor Lu served on many Government committees in Australia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Australian Academy of Science, Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, World Academy of Science, US National Academy of Inventors, and a Foreign Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Website: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/people/g-q-max-lu#about

Mr Rongyu Li

Title: Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Global Engagement) of The University of Queensland
Honorary Advisory Board Member of UQGCAA

Biography: Rongyu is an outstanding leader in the fields of international education and Higher Education administration. Prior to joining UQ, Rongyu was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor & Vice President (Students and Partnerships) at the University of Canberra. He has also held executive leadership positions at RMIT University (Executive Director, International), Deakin University (Executive Director, Deakin International), Auckland University of Technology (Director, International) and the University of South Australia (Head of International and Marketing, Faculty of Health Sciences).

In these roles Rongyu has overseen global student recruitment and admissions, marketing and communications, transnational education programs, student support services, student administration, strategic planning, business intelligence and analysis. He has also implemented a number of transformational changes to improve the student experience, from enquiry to alumni.

Rongyu’s leadership experience in the higher education sector extends beyond those roles he held above. He has contributed significantly to international education strategies at Federal, State and local government levels as well as successfully leading the development and implementation of strategic and operational plans at institutional levels.

Rongyu was Chair (2019 – 2020) and is a current Executive member of the DVC/PVC International Group, Universities Australia. He is an Advisory Council member of Asia Society Australia, and he chairs the UQ College Board. For many years, he was an Executive member of the Australian International Directors Forum (AUIDF). Rongyu was also one of the longest-serving board members of International Education Association of Australia (IEAA).

Website: https://www.uq.edu.au/about/dvc-ge

Dr Xiaoyi Sun

Title: Trustee of Dr Jian Zhou Foundation
Honorary Advisory Board Member of UQGCAA

Biography: Dr Xiao-Yi Sun, formerly a research scientist, is the trustee of the Dr Jian Zhou Foundation created in honour of her late husband, Dr Jian Zhou, who together with Professor Ian Frazer AC FRS, pioneered the creation of the world’s first cervical cancer vaccine.

Dr Sun contributed significantly to the development of the HPV vaccine. Having studied medicine with her husband, the two became partners in the lab as well as life. It was Dr Sun who, as a research assistant on the project with her husband, first generated a particle resembling the virus’s outer shell, a breakthrough that would ultimately lead to the development of the vaccine at the UQ Diamantina Institute (now Frazer Institute).

Also Dr. Sun worked with Dr. Jian Zhou at ICRF, Cambridge University and Loyola Medical University, Chicago USA.

Beyond the research laboratory and eye clinic, Dr Sun has long supported the push to have the vaccine adopted by the Chinese Government. In July 2016, a decade after the HPV vaccine was released in Australia, it was officially approved for use in mainland China.

In 2013, Dr Sun and her son Andreas established the Dr Jian Zhou Foundation with the intention of rewarding the most outstanding scientists and encouraging more people to contribute to medical research for the benefit of humankind. The Dr Jian Zhou Memorial Scholarship achieves this through providing support and encouragement to future researchers.

Dr. Sun was a UQ Advancement Campaign Board Member (2017-2020).

Mr Michael Ma

Title: President of Queensland Chinese United Council
Honorary Advisory Board Member of UQGCAA

Biography: Mr Michael Ma is a recognised thought-leader in broad Queensland Chinese community. He is also a successful entrepreneur after graduating from UQ Law school with Juris Doctor in 2003.

Michael provides executive leadership role to various communities and businesses, including: Chairman of Longze Real Estate Development Group, Chairman of AUSDE Migration and Investment, Chairman of ANCEO Real Estate Development Group, Member of Brisbane Lord Mayor Multicultural Round Table, Director of Sunnybank Performing Arts Centre (SunPAC), Chair of Brisbane Chinese Festival, President of Queensland Chinese Covid-19 Response Committee, and Recipient of 2021 Brisbane Lord Mayor’s Australian Day Award.

Professor Xue Li

Title: Professor of School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering UQ
Honorary Advisory Board Member of UQGCAA

Biography: Prof Xue Li is a Professor in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at The University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. He is honoured as one of "the most powerful people in Australia" on Big Data by the Financial Review - the Power Issue 2015. Dr Xue Li holds a Professor title in School of Medicine in Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. His major areas of research interests and expertise include: Health Data Analytics, Data Mining, Social Computing, and Intelligent Web Information Systems.

Website: https://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/973

Professor Lianzhou Wang

Title: ARC Laureate Fellow of Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and School of Chemical Engineering, UQ
Honorary Advisory Board Member of UQGCAA

Biography: Lianzhou Wang is a Professor and Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Laureate Fellow in School of Chemical Engineering, Director of Nanomaterials Centre (Nanomac), and Senior Group Leader of Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland. He received his PhD degree from Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. Before joining UQ in 2004, he has worked at two leading national research institutions (NIMS and AIST) of Japan as a research fellow for five years. He is now an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow at Chemical Engineering School and AIBN of UQ.

Professor Wang’s research focuses on the design and application of semiconductor nanomaterials for renewable energy conversion and storage. His seminal achievements include breakthroughs in interfacial engineering and defect passivation of perovskite quantum dots for stable solar cells with certified world record-breaking efficiency, and structural innovations of layered materials for practical battery application. He has authored > 530 refereed articles in high-quality journals such as Science, Nature Energy and others, attracting >42,000 citations. He has secured over > $AUD 52 M competitive research funding and won some prestigious Fellowships/awards including ARC QE II Fellowship, Future Fellowship and Laureate Fellowship, UQ Research Excellence Award and Research Supervision Award, Scopus Young Researcher Award, and Research Excellence Award in Chemical Engineering. Lianzhou is the Chair of National Committee of Materials Science and Engineering of Australian Academy of Sciences, and President of Australian Materials Research Society.  He is the fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry and Academia Europaea, and is named on the list of the Clarivate’ Highly Cited Researchers.

Website: https://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/1479

Professor Zhiguo Yuan AM

Title: Honorary Professor of Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology UQ
Honorary Advisory Board Member of UQGCAA

Biography: Prof Yuan received his PhD degree in aeronautical engineering in 1992 from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China. He changed research direction to wastewater management in 1994, when he took up a postdoctoral research fellow position at Ghent University, Belgium. He joined the Advanced Water Management Centre (AWMC), renamed as the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology in July 2021, at The University of Queensland in 1998. He served as the AWMC Deputy Director 2001-2014, and then the AWMC/ACWEB Director in 2015 to July 2022.

His research focuses on development of innovative solutions for urban water management and environmental biotechnology through effective integration of fundamental science and applied engineering. He won over $50M in government, industry and university research funding including many ARC Discovery, Linkage and Fellowship grants, mostly as the lead Chief Investigator. Prof Yuan was one of the founding members of the $117m Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities. He has published intensively both in specialised journals such as Water Research and Environmental Science and Technology, and multidisciplinary journals including Nature and Science. He is the founder of three biotechnology businesses namely SeweX, Cloevis and Lodomat, and his research has delivered documented savings of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Australian water industry.

His research achievements and leadership have been recognized through major national and international awards including the 2015 ATSE Clunies Ross Award and the International Water Association (IWA) 2014 Global Project Innovation Award (Applied Research Category). Prof Yuan was named as one of Engineers Australia’s Top 100 Most Influential Engineers for 2015. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), an IWA Distinguished Fellow, and was awarded the highly prestigious ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship in 2017. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in January 2019.

Website: https://researchers.uq.edu.au/researcher/569

Ms Yayun Rona Zhang

Title: Director and Chief Interpreter of Auschina Translation
Honorary Advisory Board Member of UQGCAA

Biography: Rona Zhang, MA, BA, MAICD, has enjoyed a long association with UQ throughout her career as a Company Director in International Education, Translation and Interpreting.

Rona has garnered an enviable reputation in the translation and interpreting industry in Australia. In addition to her role as Managing Director and Chief Interpreter of Auschina Translation for over 15 years, she served as Queensland Chair of the Australian Institute of Translators and Interpreters (AUSIT) for several terms. She is a recipient of the AUSIT National Excellence Awards that recognised her dedication to interpreting and translation which as seen her interpreting for Prime Ministers, and other key figures at numerous national and global events, including World Expo, CHOGM and G20.

Upon graduating from UQ with a Master of Arts in Chinese Interpreting and Translation in 2007, Rona lectured classes in advanced interpreting at UQ. Thanks to a nomination from UQ, Rona was awarded Alumnus of the Year (Higher Education) at the 2010 Queensland-China Education and Training Awards for Excellence. Rona served as Director of International Education Services (IES), which delivered the UQ Foundation program for over 20 years. Rona also sat on the UQ Advancement Chinese Committee, and actively led the 2020 UQ COVID19 Student Support Fundraising Initiative.

Prior to her moving to Australia in 2005, Rona played an active part in international education and collaborations in China including as coordinator of a joint high school program between Education Queensland International and Jiangsu Department of Education based in Nantong.

Rona has actively held key roles in various organisations in South East Queensland. Her leadership and board positions have included Director of Sunnybank Performing Arts Centre (SunPAC), Founding President of Sunnybank Chamber of Commerce, Executive President of Australia Jiangsu Business Council, Vice Chair of the Supervisory Committee of Queensland Chinese United Council, Secretary General of Mainland Chinese Society QLD, and Board Member of Australia China Business Council (ACBC).

With her close association with UQ on multiple levels, she has been a key driver in the establishment of the UQGCAA.

Ms Nanyi Nicole Yu

Title: Honorary Advisory Board Member of UQGCAA
Executive Director of UQGCAA

Biography: Ms Nanyi (Nicole) Yu is a PhD candidate at UQ Business School at The University of Queensland. She graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting management, and graduated in 2015 with a Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management (Advanced) master’s degree from UQ and graduated in 2017 with a Graduate Diploma in Business Research from UQ. Her current PhD research focuses on the subjective well-being in the context of events and festivals. Her research interests include social sustainable, quality of life, social capital, positive psychology, and events & festival management. She aims to build her research career in event and festival management field and further develop her research skills and contributions through collaboration across disciplines. Beside her academic role at UQ, Nicole is also the event manager of Brisbane Chinese Festival.

Website: https://business.uq.edu.au/profile/1295/nicole-yu

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