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Professor Kwan Mei-po, Head of Chung Chi College, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Geography and Resource Management, and Director of the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science (ISEIS) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), has been awarded the Lauréat d’Honneur, the highest honour conferred by the International Geographical Union (IGU), in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the international geographical community.

Professor Kwan is the first Hong Kong scholar, and the first woman and third person from China, to receive this prestigious global academic distinction since the award’s inauguration in 1976. She formally accepted the award on 21 August 2026 at the IGU Regional Conference in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Conferred once every two years, the Lauréat d’Honneur recognises individuals who have achieved exceptional distinction and rendered outstanding service to the work of the IGU and to the advancement of international geography. Selection is highly competitive and rigorous, overseen by the IGU Honors and Awards Committee, chaired by Professor Joos Droogleever-Fortuijn, former IGU First Vice-President, following a comprehensive global review of leading scholars. The IGU is a non-governmental international professional organisation dedicated to advancing geographical scholarship worldwide.

Expressing her deep appreciation, Professor Kwan said: “It is a profound honour to receive the IGU Lauréat d’Honneur. I extend my deepest gratitude to CUHK for its excellent research environment, which enables my research to achieve exceptional results. I am also grateful to members of my research team and my collaborators for their contributions and support. I remain dedicated to advancing geographical science for a more resilient and equitable world.”

Pioneering research with global impact

An internationally renowned geographer, Professor Kwan has revolutionised geographic information science (GIScience), remote sensing, and research on environmental health, human mobility and activity spaces, and sustainable urban development.

Among her most influential scholarly achievements are her identification of two foundational concepts:

• The Uncertain Geographic Context Problem (UGCoP)
• The Neighborhood Effect Averaging Problem (NEAP)

These groundbreaking frameworks challenged the conventional static residence-based approach to assessing environmental exposure. By suggesting that a person’s health is shaped by their movements across the entire city rather than just where they live, Professor Kwan established a new mobility-centred paradigm in geographical and global health research.

She is also recognised as a global pioneer in the use of real-time GPS tracking and mobile sensing technologies to collect high-resolution data on individuals’ environmental exposures and daily activities.

World-class distinction and institutional leadership

Professor Kwan’s international standing is reflected in her election as Fellow of top global academies. In late 2025, she was elected a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). Her additional honours include being recognised as a Guggenheim Fellow, Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, Member of the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Association of Geographers (AAG), the Royal Geographical Society (UK), and the Geographical Society of China.

Her achievement reinforces CUHK’s commitment to advancing interdisciplinary research and solidifies Hong Kong’s position as a premier global hub for scientific innovation and smart city research.