Professor Keith Ho Wing-kei received a BSc and PhD in Chemistry from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and was awarded post-doctoral fellowships in Hong Kong and Canada. He has wide research interests, including environmental remediation, nanotechnology, solar photocatalysis, air pollution control, indoor air quality and science education. He has secured more than HK$15 million dollars in research funding from the HKSAR Government in the capacity of Principal Investigator for General Research Fund and Early Career Scheme projects, as well as Innovation and Technology Fund projects. Professor Ho is an active researcher with an h-index of 73. He has had over 170 papers published in international journals, which have been cited about 18,000 times. Almost half of his papers are ranked in the top five per cent in their respective disciplines. He has been granted more than 10 patents in Europe, Hong Kong, the mainland and the US for his research in air purification and disinfection technology. 

Professor Ho won the Early Career Award 2013/14 from Research Grants Council of the HKSAR Government, the President’s Award for Outstanding Performance in Research (Research Excellence Award) 2018/19, and the Early Career Research Excellence Award 2014/15 from The Education University of Hong Kong. In 2018, Professor Ho’s research on novel air purification won international recognition for innovations in the environmental technology fields, receiving a gold medal at the International Invention Innovation Competition in Canada, held in Toronto. In 2019, Professor Ho was presented with the National Innovation Award in Aerosol Technology by the Chinese Society of Particuology for his research, which has had a significant impact and contributed to solving air pollution problems, and has opened up a new direction for the potential development of environmental technology.

Professor Ho earned the honour of being named in the list of “Highly Cited Researchers” (2018, 2019 and 2020) among the world’s top researchers from Clarivate Analytics. The list recognises world-class researchers who have demonstrated significant and broad influence as reflected in their publication of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top one percent by fellow academics’ citations by field and year in the Web of Science. In addition, he was listed in the “Top-100,000-ranked scientists” among seven million scholars in the world, from a study released by Stanford University in August 2019, according to the information provided by Scopus (covering total citation number, H-index, etc.). Based on publications spanning 23 years (1996-2018), he was listed in the top one percent among the 506,525 scientists in the Chemistry field.

In 2016, Professor Ho was invited to join a collaborative project as a key project member and co-investigator with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the National Key Research and Development Program of China (國家重點研發計劃納米科技重點專項) by the Ministry of Science and Technology. The five-year project aimed to develop effective air purification technology through nanotechnology and provide strategic insights into policy-relevant questions that could assist policy makers in setting up national standards for air-cleaning products in China. In 2020, Professor Ho participated in another National Science Project, The National Natural Science Foundation of China (國家自然科學基金“促進海峽兩岸科技合作聯合基金”專案), as Co-Principal Investor with research collaborators in Taiwan and the mainland.

Professor Ho is also devoted to professional service and giving back to society with his expertise. He currently serves on editorial boards of various international journals and has been appointed panel adjudicator in different science and STEM project competitions in the past 10 years. He was conferred a fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials and was appointed Adjunct Professor by Chongqing Technology and Business University, South-Central University for Nationalities, Xi’an Jiaotong Univeristy, and the Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor Ho has been a member of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Subject Committee – Chemistry (Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority) since 2018.