Outstanding Researcher Award

Associate Professor WONG Ming Wah, Richard

Department of Chemistry

The Outstanding Researcher Award is awarded to Assoc Prof Wong for findings that mark a new milestone in the fundamental understanding of the nature of chemical bonds and the stability of compounds containing lighter noble gases.

Assoc Prof Wong's passion for research is a statement of his insatiable curiosity. It empowers him with the fortitude to ask questions and a never-say-die attitude. It was this spirit of determination that led to his big break when, as a graduate student, his research came up against a blank wall. He solved it creatively by marrying his training in chemistry with computer science. The resultant synergy became his research strength - the computational study of short-lived reactive intermediates.

Assoc Prof Wong's curiosity is fuelled by the intellectual challenge of asking the right questions. His talent for posing novel problems and solving them ingeniously has pushed his research to the forefront of scientific development. This accounts for his record as being one of the most frequently cited scientists in the University's research community. Curiosity led him to question whether neutral compounds containing lighter noble gases can exist. The rest is history. In a theoretical study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society 2000 (vol.122), he proved conclusively that argon and helium are capable of forming chemical bonds and predicted that their compounds can exist in the gas phase. His projection has been empirically demonstrated by the international scientific community.

In receiving the University's recognition for his work, Assoc Prof Wong validates the observation of another great scientist. As Albert Einstein emphasised, the important thing is not to stop questioning.