On 1st July 2022, Professor Kenneth Mei-Yee Leung, Acting Head of Department of Chemistry in the City University of Hong Kong (CityU), has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology. This is an award and fellowship granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Biology has adjudged to have made a "prominent contribution to the advancement of the biological sciences, and has gained no less than five years of experience in a position of senior responsibility".
Professor Kenneth Leung is currently Chair Professor of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry at CityU, where he also serves as the Director of State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution. Since obtaining his PhD in environmental biology from the University of Glasgow in 2000, he has been serving as a dedicated educator and an active researcher in marine ecology, ecotoxicology, biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration. So far, he has trained 26 PhD, eight MPhil and many MSc graduates. Apart from teaching Biostatistics course for more than 18 years, he is presently teaching Environmental Pollution, and Environmental Health and Risk Assessment to undergraduate and postgraduate students, respectively. Since June 2021, he has been leading the Global Estuaries Monitoring (GEM) Programme which is endorsed by the United Nations as an Action Programme for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030).
At present, Professor Leung is serving on various advisory committees for the Hong Kong SAR Government such as the Chairman of the Advisory Council on Food and Environmental Hygiene, the Chairman of the Lantau Conservation Fund Advisory Committee, and a Member of the Advisory Council on the Environment. Owing to his professional achievements and dedicated community services, he was selected as one of the “Ten Outstanding Young Persons” for Hong Kong by Junior Chamber International in 2010 and appointed as a Justice of the Peace by the Hong Kong SAR Government in 2018. In recognition of his contributions to aquatic ecology and environmental toxicology in Asia-Pacific region, he was awarded the 19th Biwako Prize for Ecology by the Ecological Society of Japan, and conferred as a Fellow of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) in 2017. He was selected as one of the top 100 Asian Scientists by Asian Scientist Magazine in 2018, and recognized among the top 2% scientists in the world by Stanford-Elsevier Indicators in 2021. In May 2022, Professor Leung was elected as a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry.
Established in 2009, the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom created to advance the interests of biology in academia, industry, education, and research. The society has around 18,000 individual members. Fellowship is the most prestigious grade of RSB membership, and Fellows of RSB have achieved distinction in the fields of biological research, teaching or the application of biology. RSB Fellows benefit from increased professional recognition through exclusive post nominal letters (FRSB) and are given the opportunity to get more involved in the activity of RSB.