Professor Tim K.-T. Cheng is Vice-President for Research and Development (VPRD) and Chair Professor jointly in the Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering and Department of Computer Science & Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). His current research interests span the fields of electronic design, computer vision, and medical image analysis.

Prof. Cheng holds a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining HKUST, he was on the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) after spending five years at the AT&T Bell Laboratories. At UCSB, he took up various academic leadership roles, including the Founding Director of the Computer Engineering Program, Chair of the Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research. He was Dean of Engineering at HKUST from 2016 to 2022 before becoming VPRD.

A Fellow of IEEE and the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences, Prof. Cheng has gained due recognition for his research, including a dozen of best paper awards from IEEE and ACM conferences and journals. On top of receiving the UCSB College of Engineering Outstanding Teaching Faculty Award, the 2020 Pan Wen Yuan Outstanding Research Award, and the 2024 CCF Overseas Outstanding Contribution Award, he was named a Fellow of the School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo. He also served as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Design and Test of Computers, as well as member of the IEEE Council of Electronic Design Automation's Board of Governors and IEEE Computer Society's Publication Board.