Jimmy Lee's Homepage
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“Education
without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make a man more clever
devil.” C.S. Lewis
[CV][Publications]
Jimmy Lee graduated on the Dean's Honours List with an Honours BMath degree, majoring both in Applied Mathematics and
Computer Science, from the University of
Waterloo, Canada, in 1987. He received his MMath
degree in Computer Science in 1988 also from Waterloo. Jimmy then moved to the University
of Victoria, Canada, and completed his doctoral studies in 1992 under the
supervision of the late Maarten
van Emden (see Maarten’s wonderful scientific blog and Jimmy’s commemoration of Maarten) in the area of constraint
logic programming. During his graduate studies, he was involved in research
projects funded by IBM (Canada) and the Canadian Institute of Robotics and
Intelligent Systems. Upon graduation, Jimmy returned to Hong Kong and joined The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he is
now Director of the University
Planning Office, Associate Head of the New
Asia College, Professor in the Department of
Computer Science and Engineering and Professor (by courtesy) in the Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management. He is currently a member of the Board of Trustees, New Asia College and was on the University
Council, CUHK during 2019-23. In his past life, he was Acting Director of
the Internal Audit Office in 2024,
Associate Dean (Education) during 2019-21 and Assistant Dean (Education) during
2018-19 of the Faculty of
Engineering, Graduate Division Head of Financial Technology during
2019-21, Graduate Division Head of Computer
Science during 2008-11, and was in charge of the Department’s curricula and
Teaching and Learning matters during 2011-14 to oversee the transition to the
334-curriculum.
Jimmy's research focuses on the theory
and practice of constraint satisfaction and optimization with applications in
combinatorial optimization, scheduling, and resource allocation. In particular,
he is interested in problem modeling, stochastic local search, symmetry and
dominance breaking, global constraints, and over-constrained problems. He
and his (former) PhD student, Allen Zhong, won
the Best Student Paper Award at the 28th International Conference on
Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, held in Haifa, Israel,
in August, 2022. At the 31st International
Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, Glasgow,
UK, in August, 2025, Jimmy also won the Best Technical
Paper Award with Chris
Beck, Ryo Kuroiwa, Peter Stuckey
and Allen Zhong. On the practical side, he joins hand
with Darwin
Lau and Anthony Sum to
build autonomous robots in such applications as indoor
hydroponic farming and painting at construction sites. See the hydroponics
robots and SLAM
robot prototype running around and doing all sorts of interesting
maneuver. He is involved in C3 Construction Robotics. Another one of his fun projects results in
the framework of Infinite Stream Constraint Programming (see Publications). See
the Inverted
Pendulum Robot and Flying Quadrotor in action using a controller
synthesized by the framework. During the 2000s and early 2010s, he
researched also on novel Web-based learning platforms and accompanying
pedagogies, particularly in the design and development of educational games
(take a look at Tong Pak Fu and
Chou Heung: the Probabilistic Fantasy, Farmtasia, and Learning Villages). He was
the Associate Director (Research and Development) and then Director of the Center for the Advancement
of Information Technology in Education during 2004-12. He is
also interested in popularizing Science.
Check out his talk on A.I. Meeting Sci-Fi
(in Chinese) at the New Asia Middle
School. Inspired by his many former good teachers from elementary school to
universities, Jimmy received the University Education Award, which is the
highest honour bestowed upon contributions to
Teaching and Learning at the University, in 2017. Check
out the award sharing video. He was recipient of the
Vice-Chancellor’s Exemplary Teaching Award in 2005 and again in 2016 (being the
only person in the Faculty of Engineering receiving the Award twice), and the Faculty of Engineering Exemplary Teaching Award for the
academic years 1998-99, 1999-00, 2000-01, 2002-03, 2004-05
and
2014-15. He was also recognized for his outstanding services with
the Faculty of Engineering by the Faculty
Service Award for 2003-04.
In Collaboration with Peter
Stuckey of the University of Melbourne (now at the Monash University), Jimmy has produced two
MOOCs on “Basic Modeling of Discrete Optimization” and “Advanced Modeling of
Discrete Optimization”. The MOOCs are designed and developed with the Fable-based Learning pedagogy, and feature both a Chinese and
English versions. Learners will walk through an interesting fantasy based
on the famous novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義), with the teachers, while learning
advanced computing technologies to solve difficult real-life problems.
The MOOCs, available both in Mandarin and English, were launched on Coursera in January, 2017. You can take a look at the
promotional videos (Mandarin and English) to find out more about the courses. The third and latest
MOOC on “Solving Algorithms for Discrete Optimization” is out. You can
check out the promotional videos (Mandarin and English) and also a paper in EAAI
2020 describing the pedagogical design and initial research studies of the
MOOCs. Both Peter and Jimmy were
featured as Top Instructors on
Coursera, which is an honour for the top 10
instructors in each subject domain based on the instructor ratings given by the
learners.
Besides being active in local community
services, Jimmy is an Associate Editor of the Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (World
Scientific), and on the editorial board of the CONSTRAINTS journal (Springer). He was an Associate
Editor of the Journal of
Artificial Intelligence Research (AAAI) during 2017-2023, Artificial
Intelligence Review (Springer) and of the Journal of Discrete Algorithms (Elsevier) during
2005-14. He was a founding editor of Constraint Programming News with Eric Monfroy and Toby Walsh. Jimmy
was an elected member of the Executive
Committee of the Association for Constraint
Programming during 2006-09, and served as the Secretary of the Association from 2006 to 2012. He was
§ an Area Chair of the 40th Annual AAAI Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2026)
§ an Area Chair of the 34th
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-25)
§ a Senior PC member of the 31st International Conference on Principles and
Practice of Constraint Programming (CP 2025)
Jimmy was the Program Chair of CP 2011, held in
beautiful Perugia (see wonderful photos taken by Helmut Simonis) and organized
by Stefano Bistarelli.
He was also an Invited Speaker at CP 2023 in Toronto.
Jimmy received a cheque with interest for late payment from Donald Knuth. These cheques are “among computerdom's most prized trophies”.
Jimmy is a Distinguished
Fellow (the acceptance video) of the Hong Kong Computer Society and a Fellow of
the Hong Kong Institution of
Engineers. He was a Convenor of the Standards Assurance Sub-Committee,
Hong Kong ICT Awards
during
2010-16, and was also an appointed member on the Steering Committee on
Strategic Development of Information Technology in Education and the Steering
Committee on Selection, Quality Assurance and Review for the e-Textbook Market
Development Scheme, Education Bureau, Hong Kong SAR
Government.
Jimmy knows he is a “well-known”
scientist, but didn’t expect to be inducted “involuntarily” to be a member of the EU Academy
of Sciences even when he didn’t reply to the invitation. Ignoring it didn’t seem to work since he
received a reminder!
He was
also asked if he was interested in “being nominated” to be a Fellow by an
association again, but he had to pay
USD2,000 upfront for a so-called “Nomination review fee” (bottom of Page
2). Not sure if he should add all these
to his CV.
Jimmy considers himself a fairly
athletic person. Besides being a mediocre table-tennis and soccer player, Jimmy started long distance running in 2000 as a
hobby to torture his body and clean up his soul (if there is one). His
immediate next goal is to finish a full marathon under 4 hours (achieved his
personal best of 4 hours 4 minutes 33 seconds painfully at the
29eme Marathon International de Paris), although his running career
is in semi-hibernation now. He also claimed the “Fastest
Old Men” title (Staff Category) at the 2005
New Asia College Happy Run event (can you find him there?), dashing
approximately 7.5K from the New Asia College to the Prince
of Wales Hospital. Together with his good and long-time
partner, Ronald Chung, Jimmy captured the 2nd
Runners-Up in the Men's
Double Table-Tennis Event of the 2005 Hong Kong Teacher Tennis and
Table-Tennis Competition. Jimmy reached the peak of his
totally-non-professional career by partnering with Chung Chi College Ah Lung to
claim the championship in the Men’s Double Event of the CUHK Staff Table-Tennis
Tournament in 2011 and again in 2013. He also captured the 4th
place in the 2013 Joint U Table Tennis Invitation Match, in which the CUHK team did very well. Look at the “angry” player in action at the 2011 Hong Kong Teacher Table-Tennis
Competition, in which our CUHK team captured the team
championship. On the social side, Jimmy enjoys alcohol sampling (see the pretending
connoisseur in action) and random rumbling. Jimmy is fortunate to have
many good friends and colleagues. Besides being good companions to Jimmy
in many activities, they care also about his spiritual
behavior and purity with K.H.
Wong presenting him the nice t-shirt. His good colleague, K.H. Lee, gave him a
bottle of ultimate sports drink for marathoners (a.k.a.
Chinese vodka) to ease his training pain.
Jimmy and his wife (and another friend)
had the pleasure of taking this photo with Prof.
Charles Kao and Mrs. Kao, 2009 Nobel Laureate in Physics, on March 27, 2009 (half a year
before the prize was announced), at the 20th Anniversary dinner of
the Chinese University Women’s Organization (CUWO).
If you are bored, take a look at some
of the quotes, jokes, and writings and proverbs that Jimmy has
collected over the years (some in Chinese). Please share this present with
all. Also, this Management Lesson
would certainly benefit you for a lifetime. What is the truth in the
corporate world? It depends on the viewing
angle. This amazing
piece relates coffee, coffee cups, and life (read it even if you don’t
like coffee). If you are male, don’t miss this Cautionary
Tale for Men (in Chinese) which teaches us all an important lesson.
Everyone has parents, and everyone should read this (in
Chinese). We don’t want to be the cause of a heart-attack (in Chinese), do we? You
may change your personal philosophy after seeing this Tibetian Monks’ sand art (in
Chinese). Are you upset today? If so, read this (in
Chinese). The commencement address by Steve Jobs at the
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jlee ‘at’
cse.cuhk.edu.hk |
