Huifu Xu is a professor in the Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He took a bachelor's degree in computational mathematics and a master's degree in numerical optimisation at Nanjing University in the 1980s, and a PhD at the University of Ballarat, now Federation University Australia, in 1999. He taught at Ningbo University from 1989 to 1996 and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Australian Graduate School of Management from 1999 to 2002. From 2002 he worked in the United Kingdom as a lecturer, senior lecturer and professor of operational research at the University of Southampton and City University London between 2013 and 2015. Before joining CUHK he was professor of operational research in Southampton's School of Mathematical Sciences and, from 2016 to 2018, director of the Centre of Operational Research, Management Science and Information Technology, one of the largest research centres in those fields. His research sits within operational research and builds on his training in numerical optimisation and decision-making under uncertainty.
Xu moved from numerical optimisation into operational research and has led a large operational-research centre in the United Kingdom; his path through Nanjing, Ningbo, Australia, Southampton, London and Hong Kong reflects how the local systems-engineering department connects with the international operational-research community.
Achievements
- 1999 · Completed a PhD at the University of Ballarat in Australia.
- 2016 · Directed the Centre of Operational Research, Management Science and Information Technology at the University of Southampton until 2018.
- 2023 · Joined the Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management at CUHK.