​An internationally renowned scholar, Professor Wei Zhao is currently serving the American University of Sharjah as its Chief Research Officer. From 2008 to 2018, he served as the eighth Rector (i.e., President) of the University of Macau. Professor Zhao also served as the Dean of the School of Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Director for the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the U.S. National Science Foundation, and Senior Associate Vice President for Research at Texas A&M University. Professor Zhao completed his undergraduate studies in physics at Shaanxi Normal University, China, in 1977, and received his MSc and PhD degrees in Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1983 and 1986, respectively.

An IEEE Fellow, Professor Zhao has made significant contributions in cyber-physical system, distributed computing, real-time systems, computer networks, and cyberspace security. He led the effort to define research agenda of and to create the very first funding program for cyber-physical systems, when he served as the NSF CNS Division Director in 2006. His research group has received numerous awards. Their research results have been adopted in the standard of SAFENET (Survivable Adaptable Fiber Optic Embedded Network). In 2011, he was named by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology as the Chief Scientist of the national 973 Internet of Things Project. Professor Zhao was awarded the Lifelong Achievement Award by the Oversea Chinese Association of Science and Technology in 2005. In 2007, he was honored with the Overseas Achievement Award by the Chinese Computer Federation. Professor Zhao has been conferred honorable doctorates by 12 universities in the world and academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences.