Professor George Wong earned both his BSc (1969) and PhD (1974) degrees at the University of California at Berkeley. He joined HKUST in 1991 as Professor of Physics. In 1999, he was appointed as Director of the Materials Characterization and Preparation Facility. Before coming to HKUST, Professor Wong was a Professor of Physics at Northwestern University in US. Professor Wong was the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship from 1976-80. He is also the co-recipeint of a 2003 State Natural Science Award (SNSA), second class.

Nonlinear optics; growth and nonlinear optical properties of electro-optically active thin films: chromophoric glassy polymer thin films, Langmuir-Blodgett films, and complex oxide thin films; MBE growth of semiconductor heteroepitaxial epilayers of strain-stabilised artificial materials; and excitonic phenomena in semiconductors