The 8th Rector of the University of Macau (2008–2017), Wei Zhao is a computer scientist. He earned a B.S. in physics from Shaanxi Normal University (1982), then an M.S. (1983) and PhD (1986) in computer science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Before Macau he chaired the computer-science department and served as senior associate vice president for research at Texas A&M University, and was dean of science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. As Rector he led the construction of the new Hengqin campus and the 2014 relocation, transforming UM from a local institution into a comprehensive university with Asian influence; he is an IEEE Fellow (2001). He stepped down at the end of 2017 and joined the American University of Sharjah as Chief Research Officer in 2018; the termination of his contract briefly became a public controversy and was the subject of a government-ordered investigation.
A computer scientist who rose to senior research vice president at a top American engineering university crossed the sea to Macau and, on a stretch of reclaimed land in Hengqin, oversaw the building of a new campus roughly twenty times the size of the old one.
Wei Zhao is the 8th Rector of the University of Macau (2008–2017), a computer scientist. The most historically consequential work of his tenure was leading the planning of UM's new Hengqin campus and the wholesale relocation in 2014 — the first university campus, under "one country, two systems", authorised by Beijing to operate on mainland soil under Macao law.