Quentin Parker

Professor Quentin A Parker, PhD, BSc (hons), FRAS, FASA

Quentin Parker obtained a PhD from the University of St. Andrews in 1986 and joined the faculty at the University of Hong Kong in March 2015 to take up the Headship of the Department of Physics. In 2017 he became Associate Dean (Global) of the Faculty of Science and Director of the Laboratory for Space Research (see https://www.lsr.hku.hk/). Prior to that Quentin worked at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh (1986-1992), Anglo-Australian observatory (1992-1999), Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh (1999-2002) and then in joint position with the AAO and Macquarie University (2002-2015) where he developed and was director of the MQ research centre in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Astrophotonics growing membership from 2 staff when he arrived to 50 when he left. Research activities are mainly but not exclusively associated with Wide Field Astronomy (including being PI for the UKST H-alpha survey), large-scale redshift surveys, Galactic Archaeology, supernova remnants and especially Planetary Nebulae where he has discovered more PNe than anyone in history of the field. He leads the Hong-Kong/AAO/Strasbourg H-alpha PNe project. He has also extensive experience as an instrumentalist with multi-object fibre-optic spectrographs and narrow-band filters. In the last 8 years he has taken a strong interest in the Chinese Space program and the emerging NewSpace economy. He contributes regularly on this topic on various fora, including TV, radio and newspaper articles where he is a regular opinion contributor to the South China Morning Post and China Daily.
Academically he has published more than 595 papers and articles of which ~300 are refereed and has more than 22,000 citations with a h-index of 70. He has supervised and co-supervised about 30 PhD, MSc/MPhil and honours students to successful completion and is always keen to attract students. Quentin also has a long-term interest in Chinese Bronze artifacts and cultural heritage, interdisciplinary studies and science pedagogy.

My sustainability goals for 2024:

1. Serious and proper engagement of the HKSAR government via direct policy initiatives to promote investment in the NewSpace sector so that HKSAR can take advantage of the burgeoning opportunities arising in this sector.
2. Turbo-charged investment in ESG goals and blue and green carbon initiatives – Shenzhen’s public transport is almost all electric -why not ours? Why only one wind turbine on Lamma etc etc etc.