Professor Juliana Chan
Professor Juliana Chan was offered membership of Shaw College when she first joined The Chinese University of Hong Kong as a clinical lecturer at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology then in 1989. Her first impression of Shaw College was the beauty, serenity and peacefulness of its surrounding.
Professor Chan’s personal philosophy resonates with the motto of the College: “cultivating virtue to innovate for the benefits of humankind through learning and teaching”. She had always wanted to be a teacher when she was a child and is indeed blessed to have become a physician researcher with the opportunity to share her learning not only with students but also patients and their families.
Professor Chan is trained in diabetes, clinical pharmacology, and psychiatry with special interests in genetics and using data to drive actions. Biologically, life is about effective use of energy derived from foods. People with diabetes have biological predisposition, making them vulnerable in controlling their blood glucose under stress conditions leading to multiple complications. While she focuses on the scientific study of the effective and safe use of drugs in human, her experience in psychiatry taught her about the close links between physical and psychological health. Professor Chan’s three decades of clinical practice and learning inspired her about the genetic-environment interactions underlying many diseases and how they can be managed through empowerment, technologies and data-driven care.
In Professor Chan’s earlier career, she organised general education courses for Shaw College students on health and disease which were very well received. One of her fondest memories was the organisation of the second Asia Pacific Diabetes Epidemiology Course in 2001, which was attended by 50 experts and delegates from all over the world to learn research methodologies in epidemiology. During the course, participants spent 5 days together at Shaw College to study the distribution of disease in time, place and people when they had to link all up computers using multiple routers to get online and search literature before the widespread use of wi-fi.
With the passage of time, technologies are now developing at an unprecedented pace with AI dominating in all aspects of life. Yet, amidst this high tech and AI era, Professor Chan believes the importance of continuous learning through observations, curiosity, and enquiry remains pivotal in discovering, synthesising and translating knowledge to identify problems and create solutions for the betterment of humankind.
This article was originally published in the Newsletter of the College, Shaw Link in Oct 2025.