HKU Jockey Club Enterprise Sustainability Global Research Institute
World-Class Hub for Sustainability
Dr. Chao REN
Associate Director
Dr. Chao REN is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. She specializes in applied climatology and climate design, who uses GIS, and spatial modelling methods and remote sensing techniques to study urban environmental performance and develop climate response design strategies and guidelines.
Chao’s multi-dimensional, cross-disciplinary research has transferred scientific data into new knowledge to address social needs, enhance policy-making and support evidence-based designs in China, Taiwan, Singapore, The Netherlands and France since 2006. Chao’s publication with focuses ranging from examining the relationship between urban climate and urban morphological characteristics, developing an urban climatic mapping system and a wind corridor plan, to analysing human thermal comfort and public health risk for subtropical high-density cities. Her latest book is ‘Urban Climate Science for Planning Health Cities’ published in 2021. She is named in the 2023 World’s Top 2% of Scientists List by Stanford University.
Chao serves as an Associate Editor for Urban Climate (2018-) and an Editorial Advisor for Cities & Health (2018-) and Advances in Climate Change Research (2020-), and is a member of Urban Climate Expert Team and the Study Group on Greenhouse Gas Monitoring and of the World Meteorology Organization. She also serves as the steering committee member of the Global Heat Health Information Network and the Strengthen Emergency Preparedness and Response Strategic Committee member of the Hong Kong Red Cross. She has also been elected as a Board Member of the International Association for Urban Climate (2017-2021). She has been involved in several international collaborative research reports, including the IPCC AR6 (Contributing Author of Chapter 6 Cities, Settlements and Key Infrastructure), Climate Change and Cities ARC3.3 (Lead Author of Chapter 2), the China report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change (Lead Author of WGII) and the 7th Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7) (Lead Author of Chapter 2) of UN Environment Programme.