The Department of Electromechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau (UM), recently graduated Macao’s first home-grown doctor of electromechanical engineering, Dr. Tam Hou Kuan. Dr. Tam passed his PhD oral defence with excellence. According to external examiners from the University of Hong Kong and Chiao Tung University of Taiwan, his performance can be easily rated among the top 5 per cent at their universities.

Dr. Tam was born in Macao. He received his primary and secondary education at Kao Yip Middle School and Instituto Salesiano respectively. After he graduated from high school, he was admitted to the Department of Electromechanical Engineering at UM. He received his bachelor degree in 2001, ranking No. 1 in his class. He obtained his master’s degree in 2004 with an accumulative GPA of 3.88, after which he went on to pursue a PhD degree in thermal engineering at UM.

Dr. Tam’s PhD thesis deals with the transition heat transfer and pressure drop measurements for plain and micro-fin tubes. Due to the flow nature, experimental approach was the only feasible way. Dr. Tam started from scratch and spent more than one and a half years building a versatile experimental setup to conduct the measurements. He then spent another three years collecting and analysing data. His research results not only were published in six international refereed SCI journals and at 14 international conferences, but also earned him two awards, the Student Paper Competition Award at the International Conference on Enhancement and Promotion of Computational Methods in Engineering and Science 2006, and the Best Paper Award at the Asia Doctoral Innovation Conference 2009. External members on the Examination Committee, Prof. Chiu-On Ng from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hong Kong, and Prof. Chiun-Hsun Chen, dean of the College of Engineering, Chiao Tung University of Taiwan, were very impressed with Dr. Tam’s performance at his PhD oral defence, saying that Tam’s performance can be easily rated among the top 5 per cent at their universities.

Dr. Tam is Macao’s first home-grown doctor of electromechanical engineering. His supervisor was Prof. Tam Lap Mou.


Should you have any enquiries about the information, please feel free to contact the Information Executives Ms Lei or Ms Fok at（853）8397 4325 or  prs.media@um.edu.mo or visit UM webpage www.umac.mo.