City University of Hong Kong (CityU) will confer honorary doctoral degrees on Professor Gérard Mourou and Dr Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung, GBM, SC, JP, in recognition of their significant contributions to education and the well-being of society.

Professor Gérard Mourou, Professor Haut-Collège and Director of the International Center for Zetta-Exawatt Science and Technology at the école Polytechnique, and A.D. Moore Distinguished University Emeritus Professor of the University of Michigan, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Science. A pioneer in the field of electrical engineering and lasers, Professor Mourou has made numerous contributions to the field of ultrafast lasers, high-speed electronics and medicine. His most important invention is the laser amplification technique known as Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA), a method for generating high-intensity and ultra-short optical pulses, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, along with his student Donna Strickland.

This universally applied invention has revolutionised the field of optics, opening new branches, like attosecond pulse generation, nonlinear quantum electrodynamics and compact particle accelerators. It extended the field of optics to nuclear and particle physics. Professor Mourou also pioneered the field of femtosecond ophthalmology, which relies on a CPA femtosecond laser for precise myopia corrections and corneal transplants.

In addition, Professor Mourou has advanced laser science in Europe by proposing the Extreme Light Infrastructure, which consists of three facilities with extremely powerful lasers in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.

He was bestowed the title and rank of Officier de l’Ordre National de la Legion d’ Honneur (Officer of the Legion of Honour) in 2020, and received the Frederic Ives Medal / Jarus W. Quinn Prize and the Berthold Leibinger Innovation Prize in 2016, and the Arthur L. Schawlow award in Laser Science in 2018. Professor Mourou is a member of the US Academy of Engineering, and a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Lombard Institute Academy of Sciences and Letters.

Dr Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung, former Secretary for Justice of the HKSAR Government and currently Senior Counsel, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Laws. During his tenure from July 2012 to January 2018 as the Secretary for Justice, Dr Yuen led the Department of Justice in performing its various functions and provided legal advices to the Chief Executive and the Government. In addition to upholding the city’s rule of law, he was dedicated to fostering exchanges between the legal professions in Hong Kong and the Mainland as well as promoting Hong Kong as an international dispute resolution and legal services centre in the Asia-Pacific region.

Dr Yuen became a barrister in 1987 and was appointed Senior Counsel in 2003, specialising in commercial and related civil matters. He completed the LLM in Chinese and Comparative Law at CityU in 1997. A renowned expert in international commercial dispute resolution services, Dr Yuen has also been appointed as an arbitrator in various international arbitrations both in Hong Kong and overseas.

Dr Yuen has held many key posts in the legal sector. He served as Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association from 2007 to 2009 and was appointed as a Recorder of the Court of First Instance of the High Court of the HKSAR from 2006 to 2012. He is now a Committee Member of the International Commercial Expert Committee of the International Commercial Court of the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China; Co-Chair of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre; a Council Member of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre and the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration; Chairman of the Hong Kong Mediation Accreditation Association Limited and a Member of the Exchange Fund Advisory Committee. In 2017, he was awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal in recognition of his distinguished public service to the Government and the Hong Kong community.

Media enquiries: Kenix Wong, CityU Communications and Public Relations Office (Tel: 3442 5228/ 9753 9505; email: kenix.wwk@cityu.edu.hk)