C.T. Chan received his PhD degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. He is currently a Chair Professor of Physics at HKUST and the Executive Director of HKUST Institute for Advanced Study. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society since 1996. He received the Achievement in Asia Award of the Overseas Chinese Physics Association (2000), Croucher Senior Research Fellowship (2010) and is a co-recipient of Brillouin Medal of the International Phononics Society (2013).