Professor Kim Meow Liew stands as a preeminent figure in sustainable engineering and computational mechanics, currently serving as the Yeung Kin Man Chair Professor of Sustainable Engineering and Founding Director of the Centre for Nature-Inspired Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. His distinguished academic journey began with a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Michigan Technological University in 1985, followed by Master's and Doctoral degrees from the National University of Singapore in 1988 and 1991 respectively. Prior to his current leadership roles, Professor Liew served as Head of the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering from 2011 to 2017 and Dean of Graduate Studies at City University of Hong Kong, after establishing his academic foundation as a tenured Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore where he founded the Nanyang Center for Supercomputing and Visualization.
Professor Liew has made seminal contributions to computational mechanics and multiscale materials modeling, with an extensive publication record exceeding 850 SCI-indexed journal articles that have accumulated over 53,000 citations and an impressive h-index of 116 according to Google Scholar. His groundbreaking research on the fracture behavior of solids and computational methods for complex materials systems earned him the prestigious Carl-Zeiss-Humboldt Research Award, for which he was the first Asian recipient. His work spans nanocomposites, plate and shell structures, and fire engineering, with applications across aerospace, civil infrastructure, and sustainable materials development. Professor Liew has secured over US$50 million in research funding from government agencies and industry partners, demonstrating both the theoretical significance and practical relevance of his innovative engineering approaches.
As a highly influential leader in engineering science, Professor Liew has been elected as a Foreign Member of Academia Europaea and serves as a Fellow of multiple prestigious engineering academies including the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences, ASME, IMechE, and IES. His dedication to cultivating future engineering talent is evident through his mentorship of over 90 PhD students and supervision of more than 80 postdoctoral fellows worldwide, many of whom have established distinguished careers in academia and industry. Currently, his research focuses on developing nature-inspired sustainable engineering solutions through the Centre for Nature-Inspired Engineering, where he pioneers biomimetic approaches to global sustainability challenges. Professor Liew continues to shape the future of engineering through his interdisciplinary research that bridges computational mechanics, nanomaterials science, and sustainable design principles, setting new standards for environmentally conscious engineering innovation.
