TEAM MEMBERS
The team members at Chao's Urban Climate Application Lab are made up of experienced and dedicated researchers
from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds, all united by an undying passion for learning and discovery. Meet them below.
DR. CHAO REN
Associate Professor
Dr. Chao REN is an Associate Professor in The Faculty of Architecture at The University of Hong Kong. She has lectured widely in the leading institutions on topics of environmental design and urban climatic application.
Her research interest is Sustainable Urban and Environmental Design and Urban Climatic Application in Urban Planning. She has published widely in highly ranked journals and peer-reviewed conferences, focusing primarily on examining the relationship between urban climate and urban morphological characteristics, developing an urban climatic mapping system, and analysing urbanization-induced human thermal comfort and public health risk impacts for high-density/compact cities. She has edited and co-edited 4 books. One is The Urban Climatic Map: A Methodology for Sustainable Urban Planning (Routledge, 2015). A detailed list of her publication can be found on GoogleScholar and ResearchGate.
Dr. Ren has involved in several governmental research projects in China (Hong Kong, Macau, Wuhan, Changchun and Beijing), Taiwan (Kaohsiung), The Netherlands (Arhem) and France (Toulouse) since 2006. She has been invited by international organizations including WMO, WHO and UNEP to develop urban climate-related guides, reports and training materials. She is an invited contributing author of IPCC AR6 (Chapter on Cities) and an invited member of urban climate expert group by WMO. She serves as an associate editor for Urban Climate (since 2018) and an editorial advisor for Cities & Health. She is an elected board member of the International Association for Urban Climate (IAUC) (2017-2021). She is a registered BEAM Professional and has joined the Working Group of BEAM Society since 2011.
DR. JING XIE
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Dr. Jing Xie is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Chao Ren’s research team. Jing is currently working on the project that mapping urban local climate zones for cities of China and the Globe using multi-source Earth observation data and GIS dataset and their application in urban research and planning.
Jing studied geography at the University of Zurich and earned his doctoral degree (Dr. sc. nat.) at the Department of Geography of University of Zurich in 2018. Following Postdoctoral Research Associate position at the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow from 2018 to 2019, he is working as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong since September 2019.
His research priorities include Earth observation, urbanization, vegetation ecology, and geography information science, specifically focusing on urban local climate zone, urban analytics, environmental quantitative modelling, phenology, and productivity of vegetation, timing and accumulation of snow, mountains ecosystem, land use land cover, as well as climate change. He has collaborated actively with international researchers in several other disciplines of hydrology, plants, urbanization, and climatology.
DR. JUNYI HUA
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Junyi Hua is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Chao Ren’s research team with a main focus on the climate change vulnerability/risk assessment for high-density cities. He received his MPhil and PhD degrees from the Department of Geography, the University of Hong Kong in 2015 and 2019, respectively, with expertise in environmental studies and spatial and statistical analysis.
His current research embraces the statistical modelling and spatial mapping of the health risks of climate hazards, e.g. extreme heat, for the development of adaptation strategies for high-density cities across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, taking into account of urban climate parameters, urban morphology as well as social vulnerability. Another focus is on the interaction between human and urban natural environments such as green spaces. Such research interests are practiced in multi-disciplinary projects involving climate change, geography, urban planning, and public health.
LAMUEL C.H. CHUNG
Research Assistant
Lamuel C.H. Chung is a research assistant in Dr. Chao Ren’s research team. He received his Master degree in Environmental Management from the University of Queensland in 2019, with specialization in conservation biology. His research interests lies in the application of remote sensing, landscape ecology as well as GIS technology in environmental conservation. Prior joining the team, Chung worked as a conservation assistant in the Hong Kong Ocean Park Conservation Foundation and an assistant GIS analyst in Ambit Geospatial Solution Limited.
Chung is also a landscape, nature, and fine-art photographer who has received multiple international awards and nominations including the “International Photography Awards”, “Hong Kong National Geographic Photo Contest”. His work can be found on Facebook and Instagram.
CYRUS H.H. WONG
Research Assistant
Cyrus H.H. Wong is a junior research assistant at Dr Ren's research team, focusing on how microclimate affects energy use and thermal loads in high-density cities. As an aspiring urbanite currently expanding his research exposure, Cyrus is broadly interested in resilient city planning, sustainable placemaking and urban mobility.
Cyrus completed his undergraduate degree in Geography at The University of Hong Kong, specialised in urban and transport development. Before joining Urban Climate Application Lab, Cyrus had worked with Designing Hong Kong as a project intern on developing guidelines to interface waterfront usage with development, joined The Center for Innovation in Transport in Barcelona, Spain as a research intern, and shared his passion for urban spaces by developing and guiding city walking tours in Hong Kong.