Yik-Chung Wu   Associate Professor                     Rm 709, CYC Building,                     Department of ECE,                     The University of Hong Kong                     Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong                     Tel:  (852) 3917 7090                     Fax: (852) 2559 8738                     Email:  ycwu at eee.hku.hk

Brief Biography:

Yik-Chung Wu received the B.Eng. (EEE) degree in 1998 and the M.Phil. degree in 2001 from the University of Hong Kong (HKU).  He received the Croucher Foundation scholarship in 2002 to study Ph.D. degree at Texas A&M University, College Station, and graduated in 2005.  From August 2005 to August 2006, he was with the Thomson Corporate Research, Princeton, NJ, as a Member of Technical Staff.  Since September 2006, he has been with HKU, currently as an Associate Professor.  He was a visiting scholar at Princeton University, in summers of 2015 and 2017.

His research interests are in general areas of signal processing and communication systems, and in particular Bayesian inference, distributed algorithms, and large-scale optimization.  Dr. Wu served as an Editor for IEEE Communications Letters, and IEEE Transactions on Communications. He is currently a Senior Area Editor for IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, an Associate Editor for IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, and an Editor for Journal of Communications and Networks.  He was a symposium chair for many international conferences, including IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2023 and IEEE Globecom 2025.  He received four best paper awards in international conferences, with the most recent one from IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2020.  He was a top 1% scholar (ranked by Clarivate Analytics) for seven consecutive years (2015-2021). He was elected the Best Editor of the year 2023 in IEEE Wireless Communications Letters. He is an elected member of IEEE signal processing society SPCOM Technical Committee (2025-2026), and an IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) Distinguished Lecturer (2025 class). He is a senior member of the IEEE. More details are included in his Curriculum Vitae.

Research:

Some of my current research topics are listed below:

• Gaussian Belief Propagation: convergence analysis and application in distributed algorithms
• Bayesian Inference with automatic model order selection: From variational inference to AMP (applications: receiver design, smart grid, massive MIMO channel estimation, tensor decomposition)
• Large-scale non-convex optimization in wireless communications
• Probabilistically/Chance constrained optimization problems
• Domain-Aware AI for Wireless Communications: Beyond the Black-Box Paradigm

Previous research topics:

• Time synchronization for wireless sensor networks: statistical signal processing perspective Related presentation
• Iterative channel estimation and data detection for high mobility OFDM systems
• CFO and channel estimation for single user and multi-users OFDM systems Related presentation
• Symbol timing estimation and resynchronization for cooperative communication systems
• Symbol timing estimation in single carrier systems (linear and nonlinear modulations, SISO and MIMO systems)
• Frame/Symbol synchronization for IEEE 802.11a (OFDM-based) WLANs
• Efficient implementation of DSP algorithms
• Software radio
• Markov based packet erasure channel modeling
• Mobile digital video broadcasting systems (DVB-H, A-VSB, TDS-OFDM)

Full publication list


Research group:

   I am very fortunate to have a number of dedicated and hard-working students, postdocs and visitors work with me over the years.

Ph.D. and M.Phil. students:

Zhongtao Chen

Carol Chen (part-time, co-supervise with Prof. Xiaojuan Qi)

Binyang Cheng (co-supervise with Prof. Edmund Lam)

Yichen Jin

Eric Au Yeung (part-time, co-supervise with Dr. Xiao Hu of Faculty of Education)

Chen ZHANG (co-supervise with Prof. Ngai Wong)

Yikun Wang

Wei Zuo

Chengyang Li

Yihong Gao

Yihao Pei

Yicheng Tan

Runming Yang (co-supervise with Prof. Ngai Wong)

Previous Members:

Dr. Jianwu Chen       (Ph.D. Aug 2008, first job: a financial analyst at the Bank of Communication, Hong Kong)

Dr. Chengwen Xing  (Ph.D. Aug 2010, currently a Professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, China)

Dr. Minghua Xia       (postdoc 2009-2010, currently a Professor at SUN Yat-sen University, China) 

Dr. Mei Leng (Ph.D. Mar 2011, currently a Senior VP and Senior Data Scientist at DBS, Singapore)

Dr. Lanlan He           (Ph.D. Mar 2011, first job: researcher at Huawei Hong Kong)

Dr. Jian Du               (Ph.D. Mar 2014, currently a research scientist at TikTok's Privacy Innovation lab, USA)

Dr. Bin Luo               (Ph.D. May 2014, currently an algorithm expert at Alibaba Group)

Dr. Qinliang Su         (Ph.D. Dec 2014, currently an Associate Professor at SUN Yat-sen University, China)

Dr. Xin He                (Ph.D. Sep 2015, currently an Associate Professor at Shantou University, China)

Dr. Lei Cheng           (Ph.D. Oct 2017, currently an Assistant Professor at Zhejiang University, China)

Dr. Shuai Wang        (Ph.D. Aug 2018, currently a Professor at Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen,China )

Dr. Yang Li               (Ph.D. Aug 2019, currently an Associate Professor at Great Bay University, China)

Dr. Bin Li                  (Ph.D. Aug 2019, currently an Associate Professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, China)

Dr. Miaowen Wen     (postdoc 2019-2020 partly supported by the HK Scholar Scheme, currently a Professor at South China University of Technology)

Dr. Zongze Li            (Ph.D. Sep 2021, currently a Research Fellow at Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, China)

Dr. Yunqi Wang (Ph.D. Jul 2022, currently a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, USA)

Dr. Xueke Tong         (Ph.D. Dec 2022, currently a postdoc fellow at Centre for Intelligent Multidimensional Data Analysis Limited, Hong Kong)

Dr. Yangge Chen        (Ph.D. Dec 2022, currently a research engineer for recommendation systems, Shanghai, China)

Dr. Le Xu                  (Ph.D. May 2023, currently a postdoc at Oregon State University, USA)

Dr. Yizhen Yang   (Ph.D. Jul 2024)

Dr. Qingfeng Lin       (Ph.D. Sep 2024, currently an AI research engineer at Huawei Shanghai)

Dr. Zhenrong Liu       (Ph.D. Sep 2024, currently a research engineer at Nokia, Finland)

Dr. Weibin Kou         (Ph.D. May 2025, currently a postdoc research at Tsinghua University)

Dr. Hao Zhang           (Ph.D. June 2025)

Dr. Hancheng Zhu (Ph.D. Apr 2026)

Xiao Li                     (M.Phil. Aug 2009, continued to study Ph.D. at U.C. Davis, now an algorithmic trader in New York City) 

Jun Zheng                 (M.Phil. Aug 2009, continued to study Ph.D. at University of Texas, Austin, currently a patent attorney in the US) 

Kun Cai                    (M.Phil. Aug 2009, joined Guangzhou Telecom as an Engineer) 

Rui Min                    (M.Phil. Jan 2012, joined J.P. Morgan Hong Kong as I.T. analyst)

Long-Yin Yung        (M.Phil. Apr 2023, joined HKU as a research engineer)

Yang Leng               (M.Phil. Sep 2024, continue to study Ph.D. in HKU biomedical Engineering)

Jingreng Lei             (M.Phil. Sep 2025, continue to study Ph.D. at HKU)

Zeyi Ren                    (M.Phil. Sep 2025, continue to study Ph.D. at Tsinghua University)

Xun Cai                    (B.Eng.  Aug 2009, continue to study MS at UCLA)

Visiting Scholars:

Ke Zhong                  (visiting Ph.D. student from UESTC, 2011-2012)

Prof. Zesong Fei        (visiting Professor from Beijing Institute of Technology, Sep 2012 - Feb 2013)

Na Li                        (visiting M.S. student from Beijing Institute of Technology, Dec 2012- June 2013)

Jihao Li                     (Research engineer, Dec 2011- Mar 2013)

Prof. Jung-Lang Yu   (visiting Professor from Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan, Jul-Aug 2013)

Jingrong Zhou            (visiting Ph.D. student from Sun Yat-Sen University, Nov 2011-Aug 2014)

Dr. Rumin Zhang       (visiting postdoc fellow from UESTC, Ph.D. from Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Apr 2018 - Mar 2019)

Lili Zhao                    (visiting Ph.D. student from UESTC, Apr 2018 - Mar 2019)

Hongmei Wang         (visiting Ph.D. student from Nanjing University of Post and Telecommunications, Sep 2018 - Sep 2019)

Dr. Wanxin Zhang     (visiting postdoc fellow from SUN Yat-sen University, Mar 2018 - May 2020)

Haonan Sheng           (visiting M.S. student from Harbin Institute of Technology, Jul - Sep 2022)

Bokai Xu                (visiting Ph.D. student from Beijing Jiaotong University, Nov 2024 - Jan 2025)

Yizhen Jia                (visiting Ph.D. student from Harbin Engineering University, Dec 2024 - Dec 2025)

Wenkang Xu            (visiting Ph.D. student from Zhejiang University, Feb 2025 - May 2025)

Hongbo Miao                (visiting Ph.D. student from Harbin Engineering University, Nov 2025 - Nov 2026)

Weizhe Li                 (visiting Ph.D. student from Harbin Engineering University, Dec 2025 - May 2026)

Dec 2025.   Dinner with group members at a local delicacy near HKU

Jan 2024.   Dinner with group members and alumni in Hong Kong before Chinese New Year in 2024. Had a great time at a beautiful restaurant in Stanley.

Back row:    Long-Yin Yung    Yichen Jin    Qingfeng Lin    Bingyang Cheng    Hancheng Zhu    Jingreng Lei    Zhongtao Chen     Zeyi Ren

Middle row:    Jayden Wu (apprentice)        YC Wu    Carol Chen    Zhenrong Liu

Front row:      Yang Leng      Xueke Tong    Weibin Kou    Eric Au Yeung       Hao Zhang

Nov 2023.   Had a great time at the reunion with previous research students and postdoc. I am so proud that all of them have outstanding careers.

In particular, big congratulations to Prof. Chengwen Xing who received 国家杰出青年2023. Looking forward to more reunions in the future.

Prof. Xin He       Prof. Lei Cheng    Prof. Chengwen Xing    Prof. Minghua Xia         Prof. Qinliang Su        Dr. Xueke Tong

                                   Dr. Zongze Li        YC Wu        Prof. Shuai Wang

Aug 2019  lunch with visiting summer interns

Liu Jie      Lang Chengtian    Zhao Kaiwen      Zhu Chiwei     He Peng     Liu Jiaming

Wang Yunqi     YC Wu     Yung Long-Yin    Wang Hongmei     Qin Peinuan    Li Xinyao

Group pictures of previous years

To prospective students:    I am actively recruiting Ph.D. students for topics on machine learning, signal processing, and communications.  I am looking for students who are self-motivated, with background in one or more of the following areas: mathematics, statistics, physics, machine learning or signal processing.  Due to the large amount of requesting email, I can only reply to students who can articulate their suitability in my group.  Thank you very much for your interest.

Teaching:

ELEC1611  Circuit theory and digital logic (Fall06, Spring07, Fall07)

    ENGG1008 Electric circuit and digital logic (Fall 08, Spring 09, Fall 09)

ELEC1306  Electric and Electronic Circuits (Spring 2011)

ENGG1003 Engineering Mathematics (Fall 2011)

   MATH1853 Linear algebra, probability and statistics (Fall 12, Spring 14, Spring 15, Spring 16, Spring 17, Spring 18)

   ELEC8003  Linear algebra for signal processing (Spring08, Spring 11, Spring 13, Fall 14, Fall 18, Fall 21)

ELEC8505  Probability and Random Processes (Spring 10, Spring 12, Fall 13, Fall 15, Fall 20, Fall 22)

ELEC6100  Digital Communications (Fall 16, Fall 17, Fall 18, Spring 20, Fall 20, Fall 21, Fall 22)

Social Service:

In Aug 2009, I led a group of EEE students to Deyang, a rural village in Sichuan, to install an E-learning laboratory for a reconstructed primary school.  The original primary school building was destructed by the devastating earthquake on 12 May 2008.  This is a collaborative project by engineering professionals and charity organizations from Hong Kong.  The project rebuilt the whole teaching building from ground up, equipping it with quake-proof design, and up-to-date teaching technologies.

More information can be found at http://www.eee.hku.hk/~sichuan/