A Detail-oriented and Passionate Mind of an Engineer
Interview with Prof. Lee Tan, Dean of Students
Prof. Lee Tan has been affiliated to S.H. Ho College upon the invitation of Prof. Wong Wing Shing, former Master in 2018. The former College Master extended invitation to like-minded University members to join the College. His sincerity touched Prof. Lee, both of them coming from the Department of Electronic Engineering, CUHK. Before joining S.H. Ho College, Prof. Lee was a member of United College. For a few years, he was also the warden of Bethlehem Hall. Responsible for student affairs in the Faculty of Engineering, he was involved in the Faculty’s curriculum transition from three to four years and helped establish new programmes. He has recently been appointed as the Associate Dean of Engineering (Education).
Prof. Lee is the Chairman of Admissions Committee at S.H. Ho College. This August, he succeeded Prof. Wong Kam Bo as the College’s Dean of Students. “I have certain duties in the Faculty of Engineering. In fact, I should not take up the role of the Dean of Students. But I fit in the College quite well so far. The operation is on track. It is not laborious to work here. I am sure I would handle student affairs in other places even if I were not affiliated to S.H. Ho College. It is my fate,” Prof. Lee chuckled.
Student services are bitter-sweet. Prof. Lee said, “No one wants to get into trouble. But if you bear the responsibility in your post, you need to face head-on. In early years, I tackled a lot of student issues. There were too many unhappy stories. To name a few, students may be problematic or disappointing. Sometimes you acted with good intention, but the result was unsatisfactory.” The time spent with students have taught Prof. Lee to be flexible and open-minded. “Now I have slowed down my pace. This is not to say that I am indifferent. Actually, I have learnt to let go and cope with things out of my control now. I am more relaxed which is good for me and others.”
The academic training in electronic engineering has sharpened Prof. Lee’s mind to be detail-oriented. He tracks down and understands finer details. “The details in the engineering field are objects. In student services, the details are to focus on people.” In his daily life, Prof. Lee catches people by making use of messaging application to frequently communicate with staff members for any update of the College, and by taking part in runner force to build up a rapport with students.
In his research, Prof. Lee led his team to develop the technology to generate a variety of voices in Cantonese by computers. He said, “For instance, I am chatting with you right now and my voice is like this. But my voice in teaching and in bad temper will be different. We are trying to create computer generated voices.” The technology has to process speeches and then turns them into humanlike voices by artificial intelligence. Patients with laryngeal cancer can benefit from this innovative technology too. The meaningful service and engagement are actually not Prof. Lee’ original plan but a twisted story. One day, a member in the research team read a post in an online discussion forum. A family was looking for ways to preserve a laryngeal cancer patient’s voice before the surgery takes place to remove her vocal folds. As soon as Prof. Lee knew the story, he contacted the patient and provided timely service she needed, without a moment of hesitation. After the surgery, the patient’s voice was rebuilt, close to her unique and real one.
During the High Table Dinner in October, Prof. Lee introduced the voice rebuild project to the College community. Now Prof. Lee’s research team use the computer equipment in the Faculty of Engineering. All the tasks are carried out by postgraduate and undergraduate students in the Faculty. With the surge of patients, the team needs to recruit more people to join the force. Prof. Lee thinks that College students can give their helping hands. They can perform a wide range of tasks. For example, they can sort out the patients’ recorded speeches and mark the Cantonese romanisation. They can also enhance the mobile application which the patients use to transform their texts into voices. A faster input method and better interface in the application will certainly bring convenience to patients. College students with a major in medicine, nursing or psychology can help contact the patients, evaluate and follow the cases too.
Not long ago, the voice rebuild project has received charity fund to purchase high performance computers to enhance efficiency. From now on, the project may go steps further including collaboration with NGOs and social enterprises, which can introduce the service to patients in early stage. Prof. Lee said he is delighted to expand the service and its scale, yet he hopes to meet the real needs with a clear goal. “The technology serves people but I want to serve the real users. I hope we do not have to advertise the services so as to increase the number of users one day. That totally goes against my intention. Having said that, I am open to commercial opportunities. There are a lot we can do, like developing voices to chat with the elderly and rebuilding legendary voice-over we miss. Anyway, if we add commercial elements, we should always bear in mind our mission.”
Prof. Lee pointed out that the research team is not medical doctors who can cure laryngeal cancer. The patients need to cope with unimaginable life changes. Losing their voice is just one of the obstacles. Prof. Lee humbly stressed that the impact of the voice rebuild project should not be over emphasised. However, he is also heartened by the patients who are awaiting to find their voices again. This is what fuels his team’s unswerving devotion and commitment. The voice rebuild project is still in its nascent stage of development. How far can it go? What potentials and creativity will it bring along? It all depends on the concerted effort. Everyone’s participation and contribution can make lives better.
Prof. Lee participates in the weekly training of runner force at the College.
