Prof. Jiannong Cao's research interests include parallel and distributed computing, computer networks, mobile and pervasive computing, fault tolerance, and middleware. As the deputy director of cognitive computing lab, he is responsible for supervising the daily operation and long-term strategic plan development of the lab, and conducting research on mobile and pervasive computing for cognitive telemonitoring and assistance in smart healthcare.

Dr. Cao is a chair professor and the head of the Department of Computing at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is also the director of the Internet and Mobile Computing Lab in the department. Before joined the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1997, he has been on faculty of computer science in James Cook University and The University of Adelaide in Australia, and the City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Cao is currently an adjunct chair professor of Central South University, an adjunct professor of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Northeastern University, National University of Defense Technology, and Northwest Polytechnic University in China. He also held several adjunct and visiting positions, including adunct professor of Beijing Jiaotong University, a visiting research professor in the National Key Lab for Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University of China, a visiting fellow in the School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, a visiting scholar of the Institute of Software-Chinese Academy of Science, and Peking University Overseas Scholar Lecture Program.

Dr. Cao is the Chair of Technical Committee on Distributed Computing (TPDC), IEEE Computer Society, a senior member of IEEE (Computer Society, Communication Society, TPDC, TCPP, TC on Fault Tolerant Computing), a member of ACM (SIG-Mobile), a senior member of China Computer Federation (CCF) and a member of CCF's Technical Committee on System Software and Technical Committee of Pervasive Computing. He served as a vice chairman of CCF's Technical Committee on Computer Architecture (2004-2007). Dr. Cao has served as an associate editor and a member of the editorial boards of many international journals, including IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, IEEE Network, Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal, Springer Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications, and Wiley Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing. He has also served as chairs and members of organizing and technical committees of man international conferences, including PERCOM, INFOCOM, ICDCS, DSN, SRDS, ICNP, and RTSS.

Dr. Cao received the B.Sc. degree in computer science from Nanjing University, China, in 1982, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Washington State University, USA, in 1986 and 1990, all in computer science. From 1982 to 1983, he studied as a MSc. student in the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing.

Dr. Cao has directed and participated in numerous research and development projects and, as a principal investigator, obtained over HK$20 million grants from funding agencies such as Hong Kong Research Grant Council and Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission, and industries like Huawei and Nokia. Dr. Cao has won numerous prizes and awards, and is very active in professional activities locally and internationally. He has co-authored a book in Mobile Computing, co-edited 9 books, and published over 300 papers in major international journals and conference proceedings (including top journals IEEE TSE, TC, TMC, TPDS,TWC, TKDE, TVT; IEEE Computer, IEEE Internet Computing, CACM, JPDC, PMC, and top conferences ICDCS, PERCOM, INFOCOM, ICNP, WWW, DSN, SRDS).