Professor Tony Chan was the third president of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia from September 2018 to August 2024. Under his leadership, KAUST was ranking #1 university in the Arab World by Times Higher Education. Before KAUST, he was president of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology from 2009-2018. There he led the university during a stage of maturation into its third decade, leading to being ranked by QS as Asia’s number one university three years in a row from 2011-2013.

Before joining HKUST, Professor Chan was Assistant Director of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at the US National Science Foundation from 2006 to 2009. MPS was the largest Directorate at NSF, with an annual budget over $1B, and encompasses five disciplines: astronomy, chemistry, material science, mathematical sciences and physics.

After obtaining his PhD from Stanford in 1978, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech. Then he was an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Yale University from 1979-1986 before joining UCLA as Professor of Mathematics and was Chair of the Department of Mathematics 1997-2000 and later Dean of Physical Sciences 2001-2006. He was a co-founder of the US NSF funded National Math Institute IPAM, and served as its Director from 2000-2001.

He has served on many boards and advisory committees of universities and other organizations around the world, including currently the boards of trustees of Yidan Prize (HK), Future Investment Institute (KSA), Skoltech (Russia), and international advisory boards/committees of RIKEN (Japan), KAIST (Korea), SUSTech (China), Westlake University (China), and American Univeristy of Sharjah (UAE).

He received his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Engineering from Caltech in 1973 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1978. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and is an honorary doctorate of University of Strathclyde in Scotland and University of Waterloo in Canada.