The Faculty of Social Sciences of UM has recently completed the nomination and selection process for the Academic Staff Award Scheme for the academic year 2023/2024, and the list of award-winning teachers is as follows:
Outstanding Teaching Award: Prof. Letty Kwan Yan Yee, Department of Psychology
Prof. Letty Kwan received her PhD in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Her areas of specialization include social psychology, consumer psychology, industrial-organizational psychology and cultural psychology. Professor Kwan is an outstanding educator who provides excellent teaching programs for students and was one of the first teachers to offer a blended learning programme at UM, with over 600 minutes of video content and 13 sets of learning activity materials.
Outstanding Research Award: Prof. Daina Chiba, Department of Government and Public Administration
As a political scientist, Prof. Daina Chiba specializes in political methodology and international politics. With a PhD in Political Science from Rice University, USA, Prof. Chiba has used innovative statistical and computational approaches to analyze pivotal topics such as violent conflict, territorial disputes and gender politics. Since joining UM, Prof. Chiba has published a number of articles, most recently in the leading international journal American Political Science Review, and has been appointed as a co-editor of the SSCI international journal Conflict Management and Peace Science.
Outstanding Service Award: Prof. Ruohui Zhao, Department of Sociology
Prof. Ruohui Zhao received her PhD in Criminal Justice from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA. She is responsible for teaching undergraduate courses in the Department of Sociology and master’s degree courses in Criminology and Criminal Justice, such as Introduction to Criminology, Juvenile Deviant Behavior, and Criminal Correction. Prof. Zhao has been appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of the Escola Superior das Forças de Segurança de Macau (Macao Security Forces Higher Education Institute) and has served as the Chairman or a member of a number of postgraduate committees for the Faculty of Social Sciences. She also serves on the editorial boards of a number of academic journals.
Outstanding Community Service Award: Prof. Jianhua Xu, Department of Sociology
Prof. Jianhua Xu obtained his PhD degree in Sociology from the University of Hong Kong. In recent years, he has been actively involved in community service, including frontline work in the fight against the epidemic. He has led a number of social surveys conducted by HKU students to explore relevant research in Macau, and has visited various government departments and social organizations, as well as been interviewed by various local and international media.
Emerging Scholar Award: Prof. Yubo Tao, Department of Economics
Prof. Yubo Tao received his PhD in Economics from the Singapore Management University. He specializes in the areas of econometrics and empirical finance. Since joining the Department of Economics at UM two years ago, he has published three articles in top-tier journals, including Management Science, Journal of Econometrics and Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. Prof. Tao was hence awarded this year’s Emerging Scholar Award for his high quality and productive research.
The award presentation ceremony was held earlier at the FSS Academic Council, where the five awardees received their certificates from Prof. Richard Weixing Hu, Dean of FSS. The FSS Academic Staff Awards Scheme is organized once every academic year to recognize and reward the outstanding performance of academic staff in teaching, research and service.
