UQ civil engineers named among top global researchers

A University of Queensland professor has been ranked among the best civil engineers in the world for his outstanding research.

Professor Chien Ming Wang ranked 14th globally in the latest Stanford University Worldwide Survey, which analysed data for six million scientists in 22 fields and 176 sub-fields.

This analysis ranked him first in Queensland and second in Australia.

“I was surprised to see that I was ranked so high,” Professor Wang said.

Professor Wang has almost 600 publications and more than 16,000 citations to his name and is well known for his work in floating structures and offshore engineering.

His interest in civil engineering started at an early age.

“I was attracted to the field of civil engineering because of my dad, who was a civil engineer,” Professor Wang said.

“When I was in my fourth year in the civil engineering programme at Monash University, I was supervised by Professor George Rozvany for the final year research project on optimization of fully stressed arches.

“I became addicted to research after receiving a high distinction grade for the project as well as having my research findings published in a journal.”

He went on to complete his Master of Engineering Science degree and PhD in just three and a half years, rocketing through content that would normally take double that time.

Professor Wang worked at the National University of Singapore for 34 years before taking a position with UQ in 2017 as the TMR Chair Professor in Structural Engineering.

“Recently, I was appointed the leader of the research programme on offshore engineering and technology of the Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre,” he said.

“The centre recently received about $329 million from the Australian government and 40 other industry partners to conduct research on sustainable seafood production and renewable energy over 10 years.

“Through this exciting research project, I hope to be able to deliver innovative designs of floating offshore fish farms for the Australian aquaculture industry.”

Also claiming a stake in the world’s top 100 civil engineering researchers was Professor Wang’s UQ colleague and career mentor, Professor Sritawat Kitipornchai, who took 69^th place in the Stanford rankings.

Media: Professor CM Wang, cm.wang@uq.edu.au, UQ communications, Genevieve Worrell, g.worrell@uq.edu.au, +61 408 432 213.