About Me

I am currently serving as the Acting Director of the newly established School of Innovation at the University of Hong Kong.

Previously, I joined the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Hong Kong in Aug, 2007.

I lead the research effort of the Computer Architecture & System Research Lab (CASR) where we study the design, implementations, and application of reconfigurable computing systems. I am also the co-director and a founding member of the Joint Lab on Future Cities (JLFC), which is a joint effort between the Department of EEE, Civil Engineering and Geography at HKU.

Before joining HKU, I spent quite some time at the EECS department of University of California, Berkeley where I got my BS, MS, and PhD degrees. At Berkeley, I worked with my advisor Bob Brodersen and spent most of my time at the Berkeley Wireless Research Center.

In 2012, I spent some time at Stanford and MIT, helped teaching their introductory course to EECS 6.01.

Research Interests

• FPGA-based Reconfigurable Computing
• Reconfigurable Computer Operating System Design
• FPGA Overlay Architectures
• Medical Imaging Systems with GPUs and FPGAs
• Big Data Processing
• Embedded Systems
• Networking
• Computer Architectures

Awards

• Distinguished Visitor, IEEE Computer Society [2025]
• Test-of-Time Award. International Conference on Hardware/Software Codesign and System Synthesis (CODES+ISSS) [2021]
• IEEE-HKN C. Holmes MacDonald Outstanding Teaching Award [2021]
• Croucher Innovation Award [2013]
• Outstanding Teaching Award (Team) [2012]
• Best Teacher Award, Faculty of Engineering, University of Hong Kong [2011-2012]

Recent Research Grants

• Advanced machine vision guided aquatic surface vehicles for refuse monitoring and capturing in watercourses
  Environmental Research, Technology Demonstration and Conference Projects, Environment and Conservation Fund
  2021 - 48 months
• Efficient and Productive Parallel Data Processing in Hybrid FPGA-CPU Reconfigurable Clusters with Resilient Distributed Datasets
  General Research Fund (GRF), University Grants Committee (UGC), Hong Kong
  2016 - 2019
• A Unified Machine Model for Heterogeneous Computing using CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs
  Early Career Scheme (ECS), University Grants Committee (UGC), Hong Kong
  2013 - 48 months
• Compiler and Operating System Support for Power-Efficient FPGA-Assisted Reconfigurable Computing
  General Research Fund (GRF), University Grants Committee (UGC), Hong Kong
  2010 - 42 months
• Hardware Software Design of FPGA-Based Reconfigurable Heterogeneous Multi-Core Systems
  General Research Fund (GRF), University Grants Committee (UGC), Hong Kong
  2009 - Completed
• An Integrated Communication Network Simulation and Emulation Environment using FPGA-based Reconfigurable Computers
  General Research Fund (GRF), University Grants Committee (UGC), Hong Kong
  2008 - Completed

Contact Information

Room 601, Chow Yei Ching Building
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
University of Hong Kong
hso at eee dot hku dot hk