In 2005, the University celebrated the inauguration of the first 8 Endowed Professorships,
a milestone in the University's history.
To date, a total of 120 Endowed Professorships have been established.
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Dr Thomas T T Chen

Si Yuan Professorship in Health and Social Work

"There is an urgent need for Hong Kong to build itself into a mature and harmonious society. Towards that end, we have to make a sustained effort to expand our knowledge horizon and to continually seek new advancements in the field of health and social work, with the aim of improving and enhancing the quality of life in our society."

Dr Thomas T T Chen

Amy Y M Chow

Amy Y M Chow

Appointed in 2022

Cecilia L W Chan

Appointed in 2007

The Centre on Behavioral Health was established, in 2001, to provide the community with a high standard of psychological and behavioral clinical services, practice research, and professional education programmes. Since then it has served as a centre of excellence in state-of-the-art intervention and empirical clinical research. Today the Centre endeavours to provide a holistic approach to the promotion of mental, emotional and behavioral welfare, as well as aspiring to achieve international recognition in this increasingly important field.

Serving the poor, the sick, the elderly and disadvantaged is Professor Cecilia Lai-Wan Chan's mission in life. She is internationally renowned for her body-mind-spirit approach to total wellbeing which integrates eastern philosophies and practices into holistic care. As a dedicated social worker, she is committed to justice and creative innovations to promote social equity and harmony as well as good quality of community living.

Professor Chan has spent her entire academic career at The University of Hong Kong, from which she graduated in 1978, and joined the staff in 1985. Since then she has participated in front-line social work service, emphasising the importance of integration between teaching, research and practice innovation. She has developed practice models in critical areas, such as community work, community education, community rehabilitation, self-help, bereavement, cancer rehabilitation, hospices, palliative care, and the empowerment of women through her Body-Mind-Spirit Approach.

She is the author of more than ten books, has published more than a hundred articles and book chapters, and has presented over a hundred conference papers, as well as producing numerous research reports and work manuals.

Professor Chan is known to the public for both her advocacy work for the under-privileged and her practical innovations in social work. She is at the frontier of providing solutions to social problems such as the development of new services for migrants, children in care, women of divorce, persons with chronic illness, couples with infertility, bereaved persons and cancer patients.

Her many achievements are too great to mention here but amongst her proudest are the development of a policy on rehabilitation to include visceral disability - this became the 1995 Rehabilitation White Paper - the promotion of the establishment of a working model in bereavement and her contributions to the establishment of the first community bereavement centre, the CancerLink information and support services in Hong Kong.