WONG Chun Man Patrick

Professor

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BA, MA, PhD (Texas)

Phone: 3943-7009

Email: p.wong[at]cuhk.edu.hk

Director,Laboratory for Language, Learning and the Brain

Patrick C. M. Wong holds the Stanley Ho Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and is the Founding Director of the Brain and Mind Institute at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is Professor of Linguistics, Paediatrics and Psychology. Between 2023 and 2026, Wong served as Associate Vice President (Research). Prior to joining CUHK in 2013, he was a tenured faculty at Northwestern University where he had begun his faculty career a decade before. After undergraduate and graduate training in linguistics and cognitive psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, Wong completed a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience at the University of Chicago Medical School in 2003. During the same period, he also received clinical training in speech-language pathology and is licensed to practice in the State of Illinois. He is admitted to full (registered/certified) membership of the Hong Kong Institute of Speech Therapists and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. A versatile and effective teacher, research mentor, and clinical educator, Wong is a four-time recipient of the Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award at CUHK.

As a cognitive neuroscientist, linguist, and speech-language pathologist, Wong’s research covers a wide range of basic and translational issues concerning the neural basis and disorders of language and music. His work on language learning attempts to explain the sources of individual differences by focusing on the neural and neurogenetic markers of learning. From imaging the brains of infants and older adults, to perceptual psychophysics, grammar learning, gene sequencing, and developing processes to forecast developmental changes, his research is fundamentally interdisciplinary. The emphasis on individual variation in brain and behavior provides an opportunity for translational research that has the potential to bring changes in educational outcome and quality of life of children and adults as individuals. For over 20 years, Wong's research team has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US. In Hong Kong, his research has been supported by four Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) projects by the Research Grants Council (RGC). In 2026, his team was awarded an Areas of Excellence project by the RGC to develop personalized interventions for children in low-resource settings.

Wong has served on funding agency review panels in Hong Kong, Singapore and the US, such as the RGC and NIH. His research has appeared in a broad array of interdisciplinary scholarly venues such as Nature Neuroscience, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, Science Advances, Nature Human Behaviour, Developmental Science, Pediatrics, and JAMA-Otolaryngology. He was awarded the Independent Scientist Award and the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship by the NIH and RGC, respectively. In 2021, he was named a Guggenheim Fellow. His invention, trademarked Precision Listening®, was awarded a jury Gold Medal at the 48th Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions. Wong’s research has also received public attention from media outlets such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and the British Broadcasting Corporation/Public Radio International.

Language learning
Neurolinguistics
Speech processing
Communication disorders
Language and genetics
Auditory neuroscience
Music cognition

LING3208 Language Disorders
LING4201 Neurolinguistics
LING5608 Language Disorders
LING6980 Research Methodology