Associate Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Cross-appointment)
Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea
Co-Principal Investigator
Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-Cardiovascular Health Engineering
Derek Ho is currently an associate professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. He serves as co-principal investigator at the Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-Cardiovascular Health Engineering, where he contributes stretchable multifunctional sensing materials for wearable medical devices. Derek is also cross-appointed by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, for research collaboration in human-centric flexible materials.
Derek was born in Hong Kong, immigrated to Canada at the age of 12, returning after obtaining his PhD. He received his B.A.Sc. (first-class honours) and M.A.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada. At UBC, Derek focused on microelectronics and became fascinated with small devices. Derek received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada in 2013, where he worked on sensors combining functional materials and microelectronics for chemical and bio sensing applications.
Derek’s research interest is in soft ionic-electronic materials and devices. Through materials synthesis and device fabrication, the goal of his research program is to push for new capabilities and unprecedented performance for two application areas: (i) sensors (mechanical, chemical, and biological) and (ii) electrochemical energy storage devices (micro-supercapacitors, micro-batteries, and their novel hybrid architectures). Over the years, Derek's group has made notable advances in multi-length scale micro-nano morphological architectures for high-precision, large-range pressure sensors. In the energy storage area, his group has also developed a method of combining both pseudo-capacitance and redox capabilities into a single electrode, which enabled the realization of the micro-redoxcapacitor.
Outside of the lab, Derek enjoys nature, photography, playing the piano, and tennis (in Hong Kong), and snowboarding (in Canada). Update: Derek has little life outside the university and has no hobbies :)
For more information, please feel free to check out my interview with Materials Horizons.
D Ho*, Materials Horizons, 10, 2723-2725, 2023. (DOI)