Professor Bob Li received the BS degree from National Taiwan Univ in 1970 and the PhD degree from UC Berkeley in 1974, both in math. He taught applied math at MIT in 1974-76 and math, statistics and CS at Univ of Illinois, Chicago in 1976-79. After working on switching systems and theoretic research at Bell Labs/Bellcore for a decade, he joined CUHK as a chair professor in 1989. He now also serves as Co-director of Institute of Network Coding. Bob Li is an Honorary Professor at Univ of Electronic S&T of China, Harbin Engineering Univ, National Tsing Hua Univ, Southwest Jiaotong Univ, and Xidian Univ. He also serves as a “111 Great Master of Science” for the IGAT Program of China. Previously he was an honorary Chair Professor at Shenzhen Graduate School of Peking Univ and an Advisory Professor of BUPT. Bob Li is a cofounder of the theory of network coding. The paper “Linear Network Coding” won the IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award of Year 2005. His “martingale of patterns” (1980) engenders a research area with applications to genetics and other fields. The “algebraic switching fabric” adopted by the “Metro Switch” project of ITRI in Taiwan is derived from his book “Algebraic Switching Theory and Broadband Applications” (2001). He holds 32 US patents. A pointer at his homepage www.ie.cuhk.edu.hk/bobli leads to lecture notes in the series of “A Dialogue between Mathematics and Engineering,” which is based on some of his work.

Network coding Switching theory & switching system Stochastic processes Engineering applications of abstract mathematics