{"id":170893,"date":"2025-11-09T05:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T05:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/170893\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T05:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T05:05:08","slug":"top-astrophysicist-moves-to-hong-kong-to-head-new-hku-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/170893\/","title":{"rendered":"Top astrophysicist moves to Hong Kong to head new HKU institute"},"content":{"rendered":"

World-renowned astrophysicist Zhang Bing has joined the University of Hong Kong<\/a> as a chair professor after nearly three decades in the United States.<\/p>\n

Zhang left the University of Nevada, Las Vegas \u2013 where he was a distinguished professor of physics and astronomy \u2013 to become the founding director of the newly established Hong Kong Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (HKIAA) at HKU.<\/p>\n

He said his role in Hong Kong was full-time, but he would continue supervising his PhD students in the US until they completed their studies.<\/p>\n

After the institute\u2019s inauguration on Monday, Zhang said he was \u201cgrateful to colleagues in the astronomy community who came to Hong Kong to witness the historic occasion\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ZhangZhang said he was grateful to his colleagues who were there for the \u201chistoric occasion\u201d. Photo: HandoutThe 57-year-old researcher is widely regarded as a leading expert on the mechanisms behind gamma-ray bursts<\/a> \u2013 the most violent explosions in the universe.<\/p>\n

He is among the most cited scholars in his field, and his work was recognised in Science magazine\u2019s \u201cTop 10 Breakthroughs of the Year\u201d in both 2005 and 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World-renowned astrophysicist Zhang Bing has joined the University of Hong Kong as a chair professor after nearly three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[97679,72329,74699,2786,33880,97681,381,4563,18,57797,4202,97678,19,17,97680,1024,24390,133,451,21353],"class_list":["post-170893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-academia-europaea","tag-american-astronomical-society","tag-american-physical-society","tag-asia","tag-brian-schmidt","tag-bruno-rossi-prize","tag-china","tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","tag-eire","tag-gamma-ray-bursts","tag-hong-kong","tag-hong-kong-institute-for-astronomy-and-astrophysics","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michel-mayor","tag-nasa","tag-peking-university","tag-science","tag-space","tag-university-of-hong-kong"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115518002199919109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}