Ding

PAN

潘鼎

Prof Ding Pan is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and the Department of Chemistry. Prof. Pan obtained his BS in Physics in the 00 Class (SCGY) at the University of Science and Technology of China in 2005 followed by ScD at Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011. During the ScD study, he was a visiting researcher at the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, Germany and a Thomas Young Centre Junior Research Fellow at the University College London, UK. Before joining The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2016, he served a postdoctoral researcher in the University of California, Davis (2011-2014) and the University of Chicago (2014-2016). Since he joined the HKUST, his achievements have been recognized by multiple awards from Hong Kong and international scientific communities, including Croucher Innovation Award ( 裘槎前瞻科研大獎 ) in 2018 (HK), Deep Carbon Observatory Emerging Leader Award in 2019 (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, US), Excellent Young Scientists Award in 2020 (優秀青年科學基金) (Hong Kong and Macau, Natural Science Foundation of China.

Prof Pan has been developing and applying computational and numerical methods to understand and predict the properties and behavior of liquids, solids, and nanostructures from first principles. With the help of high-performance supercomputers, his group are seeking answers to the urgent and fundamental scientific questions relevant to sustainable development, e.g., water science, deep carbon cycle, and clean energy.