TAINAN, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Academician Michael Ming-Chiao Lai, having served as President of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Tainan, Taiwan, for four years, entrusts the responsibility to new President Prof. Hwung-Hweng Hwung on February 1st.
Under the leadership of President Michael Ming-Chiao Lai, National Cheng Kung University has expanded its international relations, cooperated with scholars from world’s top universities and established an English-teaching environment.
President Lai believed that interdisciplinary cooperation can help solve mankind’s problems. He particularly emphasized on the integration of professional knowledge and humanism to cultivate talents with humanistic accomplishments, international perspective, creativity and social caring.
Besides professional education, President Lai has paid special attention to students’ humanistic accomplishments. In his four years of presidency, President Lai has improved artistic facilities and space on campus and organized numerous literary events to nurture students’ body and mind and enhance their humanistic accomplishments.
He has even performed in several events with his violin, leaving a deep impression on the minds of the teachers and students.
In addition, realizing the importance of teaching and research, President Lai has urged National Research Centers and State Key Laboratories to fully support the teaching and research of NCKU research centers, experiment sites and laboratories, such as Aerospace Science and Technology Research Center, Center for Micro/Nano Science and Technology and hydraulic experimental site.
Concerned with the domestic industrial development, President Lai has eagerly participated in the industrial development of technology industry in Southern Taiwan. He believed the relationship between NCKU and Southern Taiwan Science Park is the same as the relationship between University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University and Silicon Valley, and NCKU should play the leading role in Southern Taiwan.
During the presidency of President Michael Ming-Chiao Lai, National Cheng Kung University has created many outstanding research achievements and thus it has ranked 19th globally in engineering field and is among the top 50 globally in materials science field.
According to the latest academic ranking of research institutions done by Elsevier, the world's major publisher of science and medicine literature, NCKU has ranked 19th worldwide in alternative energy research papers of distinctive competency, being the only Taiwanese institution among the global top 25 list.
In his parting address, President Michael Lai has expressed his sincere gratitude toward all the faculty, staff, students, alumni and community for their countless efforts, selfless dedication, significant improvement, noble support and gracious contribution.
President Lai revealed, “After I leave my post as the President, I will return to Academia Sinica, but I will still come to National Cheng Kung University. In the past four years, NCKU has already become a part of me, and I will always be a member of the NCKU family.”
Additional Information:
Academician Michael Ming-Chiao Lai, a world-renowned molecular virologist, became the President of National Cheng Kung University on February 1st, 2007. He received his master degree from National Taiwan University, Taiwan, and doctoral degree in Molecular Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, United States.
In his 30-plus years of academic career, Dr. Lai has established himself as a foremost virologist on the international stage, excelling in three different disparate and medically important viruses, including coronavirus, hepatitis delta virus (HDV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV).
Dr. Lai has been regarded as a pioneer and a leading investigator in the coronavirus and HDV research in the world, having made numerous seminal contributions to the understanding of the molecular biology and pathogenesis of the coronavirus, which causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) among other diseases, and is an author of many textbook chapters on coronavirus.
Dr. Lai has been recognized by many awards and prominent standings in professional societies. He was elected to the membership of Academia Sinica, American Academy of Microbiology and The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, appointed as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and has served on the editorial boards of many other scientific journals.