Charles Wang Wai

NG

吳宏偉

PhD, University of Bristol

Brief Biography

Professor Charles Wang-Wai Ng is the Vice-President for Institutional Advancement.  He also serves as the CLP Holdings Professor of Sustainability, Chair Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Climate Resilience for Coastal Cities. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the immediate Past President of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (2017-2022). He is a Chartered Civil Engineer (CEng), a Fellow of Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (FHKIE), the Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE) and American Society of Civil Engineers (FASCE). Recently, he has been selected as the 65th Rankine Lecturer for 2027 (the 2nd Rankine lecturer from Asia after Professor Kenji Ishihara in 1997).

Professor Ng earned his PhD from the University of Bristol in 1993 and carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge, where he was subsequently elected an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College. He joined HKUST as an Assistant Professor in 1995 and rose through the ranks to become Chair Professor in 2011 – a testament to his outstanding contributions to both academia and the University. His commitment to nurturing global talent is reflected in his supervision of over 92 PhD and 63 MPhil students from more than 23 countries and regions to successful graduation.

He is the Project Co-ordinator (PC) and Principal Investigator (PI) of an ongoing major multi-disciplinary grant: Area of Excellence (AoE) project (Centre for slope safety, awarded HK$ 91.852M), was PC and PI of three completed multi-disciplinary large-scale grants including a theme-based research project (Understanding debris flow mechanisms and mitigating risks for a sustainable Hong Kong, awarded HK$ 33.225M), and two Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) projects (Awarded HK$ 8M and HK$ 5.8M).

An internationally acclaimed expert in soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering, Professor Ng specializes in unsaturated soil mechanics, eco-geotechnics, debris flow mitigation, slope stability, landslide prevention, landfill and soil-structure interaction engineering such as piled foundations, deep excavations and tunnels. According to Stanford University’s 2025 list of the world’s top 2% scientists, he is the youngest scholar ranked among the top two professors for career-long impact in the sub-fields of Geological & Geomatics Engineering and Civil Engineering.

Professor Ng has published approximately 450 SCI journal articles and 250 conference papers, achieving an H-index of 108 (over 40,000 citations). He has delivered more than 100 keynote addresses and state-of-the-art reports across six continents. He is the main author of four reference books: (i) A Short Course in Soil-Structure Engineering of Deep Foundations, Excavations, and Tunnels (Thomas Telford, 2004); (ii) Advanced Unsaturated Soil Mechanics and Engineering; (iii) Plant-Soil Slope Interaction; and (iv) Advanced Unsaturated Soil Mechanics: Theory and Applications (2nd edition) (CRC Press: Taylor & Francis, 2007, 2019, and 2024, respectively).

Professor Ng has received numerous awards including the 2025 Telford Gold Medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) — the highest honour bestowed by the ICE since its establishment in 1838. He also earned the 2025 Donald Stanley Award (the best paper in Environmental Engineering) from the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, the 2023 Scott Sloan Paper Award (highest cited paper in previous 5 years) from Computers and Geotechnics, the R. M. Quigley Award from the Canadian Geotechnical Society, which he has won four times for best papers published in Canadian Geotechnical Journal in 2023, 2016, 2012 and 2007, the 2022 Varnes Medal from the International Consortium on Landslides, the 2022 Fredlund Award (highest cited paper published in Canadian Geotechnical Journal in previous 5 years) from the Canadian Geotechnical Society.

In Chinese Mainland, Professor Ng received the 2025 Natural Science Award (1st class) by the Chinese Society for Rock Mechanics and Engineering, 2024 Natural Science Award of Hainan Province (1st class), the 2022 Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress, the 2020 National Natural Science Award (2nd class) and the 2015 Scientific Technological Advancement Award (2nd class) from the State Council of China. He was elected as a Changjiang Scholar (Chair Professorship in Geotechnical Engineering) by the Ministry of Education in 2010 and a recipient of Overseas, Hong Kong and Macau Young Scholars’ award in 2007 by the National Science Foundation of China.

Research Projects

Green, Energy and Geo-environmental Engineering Projects

• Theme-based Project: Understanding debris flow mechanisms and mitigating risks for a sustainable Hong Kong (Theme-based/RGC)
• Performance of unsaturated earthen embankments subject to climate change: centrifuge and numerical modelling (GRF)
• Dissociation-induced deformation and instability of methane hydrate-bearing soils with various micro-structures (GRF/RGC)
• PCC 能量樁熱、力學工程特性及樁 - 土荷載傳遞機理研究 (A Fundamental Investigation of PCC Energy Pile and Load Transfer Mechanism) (NSFC)
• Performance of floating energy piled foundations in clay subjected to thermal cycles: three-dimensional centrifuge and numerical modelling (GRF/RGC)
• Hydro-mechanical behaviour of fine-grained soil contaminated by liquid hydrocarbon
• 填埋場植物 - 建築垃圾相互作用機理及生態覆蓋系統研發 (Vegetation-construction waste interaction and development of sustainable landfill cover) (NSFC)
• Hydro-mechanical behaviour of fine-grained soil contaminated by liquid hydrocarbon (GRF/RGC)
• Cyclic soil-root mechanical interaction for urban greening (GRF/RGC)

Material Behaviour and Fundamental Mechanisms

Cyclic thermo-mechanical behaviour of clay and sand with reference to energy piles (GRF/RGC)

Fundamental investigation of wetting-induced failure mechanisms of loess slopes (GRF/RGC)

Fundamental investigation of wetting-induced failure mechanisms of loess slopes (GRF/RGC)

Anisotropic stiffness of unsaturated soil under cyclic thermo-hydro-mechanical loads with principal stress rotations (GRF/RGC)

Centrifuge modelling of the influence of four types of fault movements on ground deformations

Soil-Structure Interaction Problems

Interaction among multiple circular and non-circular tunnels: three-dimensional centrifuge and numerical modelling (GRF/RGC)

Three-dimensional centrifuge modelling of multi-propped excavation on adjacent pile group and piled-raft foundation (GRF/RGC)

Experimental investigation of dynamics of granular flows obstructed by baffles using flume (GEO)

Centrifuge modelling for debris impact on flexible barrier (GEO)

Three-dimensional centrifuge modelling of tunnelling effects on pile groups in soft ground (GRF/RGC)

Three-dimensional centrifuge modelling of the effects of basement excavation on existing tunnels (GRF/RGC)

For other details of Professor Ng's research activities and accomplishments, please click this link.