Dr. Cheung is currently the James L. Knight Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Medicine and Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Miami. He also holds the highly prestigious rank of the Senior Veteran Affairs Research Career Scientist at the Miami Veteran Affair Medical Center at Miami, Florida. Such appointment is limited to only 50 or so scientists in the Department of Veteran Affairs Research Service in United States.  

Besides being the Editor of the E-Book “Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine”, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the Current Tissue Engineering Journal, guest Editors for the Current Rheumatology Review Special issue “Stem Cells, Cartilage Repair and Osteoarthritis” and the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology. Dr. Cheung also serves on the editorial boards of Cartilage & Osteoarthritis, Anatomical Record, World Journal of Transplantation and World Journal of Stem Cells. He was a member of NIH study sections, VA Merit Review Boards, foundations and the Cell Biology Section of the Arthritis Foundation. He was the site Director of NSF Industry/University Center for Biosurfaces and co-Director of the Cellular Therapy and Tissue Engineering Initiative at University of Miami. He is one of the Founding Members of the Walter H Coulter Center for Translation Research and Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the university.  Dr. Cheung has received national and international awards including: NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship, the NIH Research Career Developmental Award, the Arthritis Foundation Robert Doucette Research Award, the Miami VA Special Contribution awards, the 5-year National VA Research Career Scientist Award, the U. of Miami Dean’s Senior Laboratory Research Award, and more recently the prestigious 7-year Senior National Veteran Affair Research Career Scientist Award. In 2011, he was named the Distinguish Visiting Scholar Award by the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2012, Dr. Cheung was named the S. Florida Federal Employee of the Year Award as well as S. Florida Employee of the Year in the Scientific Division out of 165,000 Federal Employee in Florida. He was given a Certificate of Special US Congressional Recognition signed by Florida Senator Bill Nelson in honor of his invaluable contribution to the state of Florida.

Dr. Cheung’s research interests include effect of smoking on regenerative potential of stem cells, biomineralization, osteoarthritis and stem cell-based tissue engineering in eye and cardiovascular diseases.. His research has been supported NIH, NSF, Veteran Affairs Merit Review and Arthritis Foundation. He has over 170 full-length peer-reviewed publications in basic and clinical journals and 3 patents. In 2012, he was part of the team that received the prestigious NIH Clinical Translational Science Institute Grant. The $20 millions fund will enable University of Miami to expand the clinical translation research of minority health issue in Florida. 

Terms of Appointment: Jan 2016 – Dec 2019