University of Calgary

Hon Wai Lau

I am a visitor of the Complexity Science Group since January 2012 and studying physics PhD at University of Calgary since May 2012.

Education

2012 – current PhD in Physics, University of Calgary
2007 – 2009 MPhil in Physics, HKUST
2004 – 2007 BSc in Physics and Mathematics, minor in Information Technology, (First Class Honors), HKUST

Professional experience

Jan 2010 ~ Aug 2011 Assistant Researcher of Dept. of Physics, HKUST. Mainly developed an online educational and assessment platform.
Sep 2007 ~ Aug 2009 MPhil thesis research, "Random walk in networks : first passage time and speed analysis"
Sep 2007 ~ May 2009 Teaching Assistant at HKUST. Taught courses of Fundamentals of Physics, Modern Physics Laboratory, Classical Mechanics and Quantum Mechanics
Jun 2007 ~ Aug 2007 Research Assistant at HKUST
Sep 2006 ~ May 2007 Final year project, "Synchronization and stability of pulse coupled oscillator network"

Publication

  1. Hon Wai Lau, Maya Paczuski, Peter Grassberger, "Agglomerative Percolation on Bipartite Networks: A Novel Type of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking " (2012) [arXiv]
  2. H. W. Lau, K. Y. Szeto, "Asymptotic analysis of first passage time in complex networks", Europhys. Lett. 90, 40005 (2010) [arXiv]
  3. C. L. Wang, K. W. Au, C. K. Chan, H. W. Lau, K. Y. Szeto, "Detecting Hierarchical Organization in Complex Networks by Nearest Neighbor Correlation", Studies in Computational Intelligence (SCI) 129, 487-494 (2008)

Awards

Postgraduate Studentship/Postgraduate Research Assistantship, HKUST (2007-2009)
Dean list Award, HKUST (2006)

Skills and Others

Proficiency in programming in C/C++, Python and PHP. Familiar with Javascript, Mathematica and D
Having experience with svn and git versioning system. Linux and web server adminstration
Refereeing work: Journal of Statistical Mechanics, Philosophical magazine
I contribute open source code occasionally:

  • Developed code to handle network using igraph in C++
  • Developed code to create physics and mathematics questions in Moodle

Contact

Email: hwlau [at] uclgary.ca
Mailing address: Science B, Room 508, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, SB605 - 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4