Ka-Veng Yuen (Ph.D., California Institute of Technology)

Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Macau

Leading Scientist, Urban Public Safety and Disaster Mitigation Section, State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City, University of Macau

Co-Director, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory on Smart Cities

Personal website: http://www.fst.um.edu.mo/personal/kvyuen

Prof. Yuen is a Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) of the University of Macau. He is a member of the 8th Science and Technology Commission of the Ministry of Education. He is also a Council Member of the Escola Superior das Forças de Segurança de Macau (ESFSM) and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT) of the Macao SAR Government. He was the Head of Department of CEE, Associate Dean (Academic Affairs), Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) and interim Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, the Registrar and the Dean of Graduate School of the University. He also served as the Chair of Staff Housing Committee, Information and Education Technology Committee and Scholarship Committee of the Senate, the Panel of Intellectual Property Rights, Member of the Administrative Committee of UMTEC Limited, Academic Advisor of Research& Development Administrative Office. In 2016 and 2017, he served as the spokesman of the first Joint Admission Examination for Four Higher Education Institutions in Macao. 

In 2012, he was elected in the National Science and Technology Award Panel Expert Bank and the National Science and Technology Programs Expert Bank of the Ministry of Science and Technology, People’s Republic of China. In 2002, he received his PhD in civil engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) after a study period of 2 years and 7 months. In 2010 and 2018, he became the first UM full professor promoted before the age of 35 and first UM Distinguished Professor promoted before 43, respectively. His major awards include: 15th Guanghua Engineering Science and Technology Prize (Chinese Academy of Engineering), Young Investigator Award, International Chinese Association on Computational Mechanics; QIAN Weichang programme scholar, K.C. Wong Education Foundation; Phi-Tau-Phi Honorary member and the Housner’s Fellowship (Housner is known as “the Father of Earthquake of Engineering.”) In 2014 and 2017, Prof. Yuen received the Second Prize of Technology Invention Award (Second PI) and Second Prize of Natural Science Award (Sole PI) from the Macao SAR Government, respectively.

Prof. Yuen’s research expertise includes Bayesian inference, uncertainty quantification, system identification, structural health monitoring, reliability analysis and analysis of dynamical systems. His paper “Model selection using response measurements: Bayesian probabilistic approach” (coauthored with J.L. Beck) is one of the top 10 most cited papers among all papers published in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics (established since 1983) of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Furthermore, his single-author book “Bayesian methods for structural dynamics and civil engineering (published by the top publisher John Wiley & Sons in 2010) has attracted great attention of Bayesian methods for structural dynamics. It has become a classical reading in this research field. He also serves as editorial board member of a number of prestigious journals, such as Computer-aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, Structural Control and Health Monitoring, and International Journal for Uncertainty Quantification. 

According to the citation ranking published in PLOS Biology in October 2019 by Prof. John P.A. Ioannidis of Stanford University, Prof. Yuen is among the top 125 Civil Engineering scholars worldwide.