Prof. Charles Ng Receives Varnes Medal 2022
Prof. Charles Ng, CLP Holdings Professor of Sustainability and Chair Professor of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been awarded the prestigious Varnes Medal by the International Consortium on Landslides (ICL). The award ceremony was held during the World Landslide Forum in Florence in November 2023.
The Varnes Medal was established in 2003 by ICL as the highest award of the consortium to commemorate the significant contribution of Dr. David Varnes (1919–2002). The award also aims to recognize professional excellence in landslide research. Dr. Varnes of the U.S. Geological Survey studied many types of landslides and proposed a classification standard for landslides. His classification formed the basis for the internationally agreed upon definition of landslides during the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) from 1990 to 2000. Dr. Vanes has been named the most respected researcher in the landslide community.
Prof. Ng obtained his PhD degree from the University of Bristol (UK) in 1993. After carrying out post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge, he joined HKUST as an Assistant Professor in 1995, rising through the ranks to become Chair Professor in 2011. Prof. Ng has supervised more than 60 PhD and 60 MPhil students, and has published some 390 SCI journal articles and 250 conference papers, as well as delivering more than 100 keynotes and state-of-the-art reports across six continents.
As an expert in geotechnical engineering, Prof. Ng is a Changjiang Scholar (Chair Professorship in Geotechnical Engineering), a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences, and an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College of the University of Cambridge. He is also the Vice-Chairman of the Rock and Soil Mechanics Division of the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, as well as a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK), the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers. Currently, he is one of the Editors-in-Chief of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal. Prof. Ng was elected President of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering from 2017 to 2022. His research interests include unsaturated soils, soil-plant interaction, green slope engineering and debris flows, geo-environment (such as landfill covers), geo-energy (such as methane hydrate) and soil-structure interaction problems (such as pile, excavation and tunnel).
Congratulations to Prof. Ng on the tremendous honor!
