Christopher Pissarides is the 2010 Nobel laureate for Economics. He was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his “analysis of markets with search frictions,” together with Professors Peter Diamond of MIT and Dale Mortensen of Northwestern. He holds the Norman Sosnow Chair in Economics at the London School of Economics and the Marfin-Laiki Chair in European Studies at the University of Cyprus. He specialises in the economics of unemployment, labour-market theory, labour-market policy and more recently he has written about growth and structural change. He has written extensively in professional journals and his book Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, now in its second edition, is a standard reference in the economics of unemployment.
 

He is the current President of the European Economic Association. He is also an elected Fellow of the British Academy, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association and the Society of Labor Economists. He is serving or has served as a member of Council of the European Economic Association, the Econometric Society and the Royal Economic Society.

Outside academia he has served as an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Cyprus from its creation in 2000 to its dissolution in 2007 and on the European Employment Task Force chaired by Wim Kok (2003). He has been a consultant on employment policy and other macroeconomic issues for the World Bank, the European Commission, the Bank of England and the OECD.

Other honours include the IZA Prize in Labor Economics (shared with Dale Mortensen in 2005) and the Republic of Cyprus “Aristeion” for the Arts, Literature and Science (2008) and the Grand Cross of Archbishop Makarios, the highest award of the Republic, received in 2011.

Prof Tony F Chan is the President and Chair Professor in Computer Science & Engineering, and Mathematics at HKUST, a top-ranked university in Asia.

Prior to joining HKUST in September 2009, Prof Chan was Assistant Director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in charge of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, which is the largest directorate at NSF. In this position, he guided and managed research funding of about HK$10 billion a year in astronomy, physics, chemistry, mathematical science, material science, and multidisciplinary activities. Before this, Prof Chan served the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1986 to 2006, and was promoted to Dean of Physical Sciences in 2001.

Prof Chan is an expert in mathematical image processing and computer vision. He has published over 200 refereed papers and is one of the world’s most cited mathematicians. He is also an active member of many scientific societies, including Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics where he had served on both the Board of Trustees and the Council, as well as Member of the American Mathematical Society, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

Prof Chan received his BS and MS degrees in Engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. He pursued postdoctoral research at Caltech, and was a faculty of Computer Science at Yale University before joining UCLA.

UC RUSAL (www.rusal.com) is the world’s largest producer of aluminium, in 2010 accounting for approximately 10% and 10% of global production of aluminium and alumina, respectively. UC RUSAL employs about 76,000 people in 19 countries, across 5 continents. UC RUSAL markets and sells its products primarily in the European, Asian and North American markets. UC RUSAL's ordinary shares are listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (Stock code: 486) and global depositary shares representing UC RUSAL's ordinary shares are listed on the professional compartment of Euronext Paris.

Founded in March 2007, the United Company is a result of the merger of RUSAL, SUAL, and the alumina assets of Glencore of Switzerland. En+ Group owns a 47.41% stake in the United Company, 17.02% is owned by ONEXIM, SUAL’s shareholders hold 15.80 %, 8.62% is owned by Amokenga Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Glencore, and others own 11.14%.

In 2010 UC RUSAL produced 4.1 mln tonnes of aluminium and 7.8 mln tonnes of alumina. United Company RUSAL's assets include bauxite and nepheline ore mines, alumina refineries, aluminium smelters, casthouse business for production of alloys, foil mills and production of packaging materials as well as power-generating assets.

RUSAL is comprised of 16 aluminium smelters, 12 alumina refineries, 8 bauxite mines, 3 powder metallurgy plants, 3 silicon smelters, 3 secondary aluminium plants, 3 aluminium foil mills, 2 cryolite plants, and one cathode plant. RUSAL has its own R&D and engineering capabilities and owns the RA-300 and RA-400 technologies.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), situated in Hong Kong, China, is a top-ranked university in Asia. Established in 1991, HKUST has five schools - Science, Engineering, Business and Management, Humanities and Social Science, as well as the Fok Ying Tung Graduate School in Nansha, Mainland China. The University has nine research institutes, among them the Institute for Advanced Study of HKUST, set up to foster cross-discipline collaboration among the top scientists and scholars in the world. Currently, there are about 6,000 undergraduate students and 3,500 postgraduate students. As a research university, HKUST focuses on five areas of frontier research, namely nano science and technology; biological sciences and biotechnology; electronics, wireless and information technology; environment and sustainable development as well as management education and research.

As a major initiative of HKUST's 2005-2020 Strategic Plan, the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge to meet the great challenges of the 21st century. IAS aims to bring together the most brilliant minds to drive cutting-edge discovery and scholarship. Its goal is to be a premier intellectual center and a platform for innovation and scientific development in Hong Kong and the Greater China region. IAS has 24 Visiting Members, 2 Senior Visiting Fellows, 3 Affiliate Members and 3 Fellows from diverse disciplines who champion collaborative, inter-disciplinary, inter-institutional projects in high-impact areas. Since its establishment in 2006, it has sponsored some 150 distinguished lectures, seminars, conferences and workshops. Guest speakers include Nobel Laureates, members of National Academies, world renowned academics and researchers, senior government officials and business leaders.

"The Power of Focus: Turning Opportunity into Success"
Guest Speaker: Oleg Deripaska, CEO of UC RUSAL
Date: 21 September 2010
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