Prof. Xun-Li WANG

In August 2012, Prof. Xun-Li Wang joined City University of Hong Kong as a Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Physics and Materials Science. In July 2017, the department split, and Prof. Wang became the founding head of the new Department of Physics. He oversaw a rapid expansion of the new department – the physics faculty grew from 12 to 27 within five years. In 2022-2023, he served as Executive Director of Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study (HKIAS), where he provided leadership to revive the academic programs at HKIAS following the COVID-19 pandemic. In the fall of 2024, he was appointed a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University.

 

Prior to coming to Hong Kong, he worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US, rising through the ranks to Distinguished Staff Member. He was responsible for the design, construction, and commissioning of VULCAN, a powerful engineering diffractometer at the Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. As a senior scientist in the Neutron Science Directorate, he led innovative research, using neutron scattering as a primary tool, to understand deformation and phase transformation behavior in complex materials.

 

Since joining City University of Hong Kong, Prof. Wang has been committed to establishing Hong Kong as an international hub for neutron scattering research. With the support of The Croucher Foundation, he initiated the biennial Croucher Summer Course on Neutron Scattering. He was also instrumental in launching the Gordon Research Conference on Neutron Scattering, serving as the inaugural Chair in 2015. In addition, he and Prof. Hesheng Chen of the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, co-founded a joint laboratory on neutron scattering. Furthermore, in 2020, he helped to establish the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Joint Laboratory on Neutron Scattering, serving as the Executive Director in Hong Kong. The joint laboratories have received financial support from The Croucher Foundation, Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council, Guangdong Province, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the meanwhile, Prof. Wang has maintained an active research portfolio. His current research focuses on structure and dynamics of metallic glass, and deformation behaviors of high entropy alloys.

 

Prof. Xun-Li Wang received a B.S. in Physics from Peking University in 1985, and went to the United States through the CUSPEA program, earning a Ph.D. from Iowa State University. He is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA). In 2020, he was awarded a Croucher Senior Research Fellowship in Hong Kong. He currently serves as an International Councilor and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Physical Society.