“Neutrinos are like magicians. They can change their identity right in front of us.”

These are the words of IAS Paul C W Chu Professor Kam-Biu Luk, whose game-changing research on the universe’s most elusive particle, the neutrino, has opened up new paths for discovery in the field of subatomic physics.

About 100 trillion neutrinos pass through our bodies every second, emissaries from the Sun and other stars, and from the farthest reaches of outer space. Yet they have long remained a mystery to scientists. These “shy” and even “ghostly” particles are capable of the extraordinary feat of changing form while traveling through space—as if one were to toss an apple in the air and see it fall to the ground as an orange. This is known as neutrino oscillation.

In March 2012, Professor Luk and colleagues from across the world announced their discovery of a new type of neutrino oscillation, observed deep underground in the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment. As co-leader of this ground-breaking experiment, which united researchers from Asia, Europe and the U.S., Professor Luk was awarded the W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in 2014, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2016, and the Future Science Prize in Physical Sciences in 2019.

Why do scientists care so much about these tiny particles? Professor Luk has the answer. “They are fundamentally tied to our existence. Our bodies are made up of ordinary matter, from biological cells all the way down to atoms and finally elementary particles, one of which is the neutrino.” Learning about the neutrino can help unravel not only the mysteries of the universe but also the secrets of human existence.

For Professor Luk, this journey of discovery began in the early 1970s at the University of Hong Kong, where the future world-leading scientist was entrusted with research on particle physics while still an undergraduate. Moving to the U.S., he secured his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1983. Following postdoctoral research at the University of Washington in Seattle, Professor Luk took up a three-year R.R. Wilson fellowship at Fermilab, the U.S.’s foremost particle-accelerator facility.

The next few decades saw Professor Luk rise rapidly through the ranks of the University of California at Berkeley/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He returned to Hong Kong in 2021, joining the HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study and HKUST’s Department of Physics, where he now serves as Chair Professor. It is difficult to imagine a more deserving recipient of the IAS Paul C W Chu Professorship than this visionary scholar, with his commitment to pioneering fundamental and interdisciplinary research for the advancement of knowledge and social progress—in Hong Kong and beyond.