The Mr. Armin and Mrs. Lillian Kitchell Undergraduate Research Award was established in 2010 to recognize students who demonstrate outstanding performance in the University-wide Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and to promote research culture among undergraduate students. 

Mr. Toby Ting Hin MAK won Champion of the Mr Armin and Mrs Lillian Kitchell Undergraduate Research Award competition in 2021. Mr. Mak, a 3rd-year Physics IRE student, has explored the machine learning aided analysis of quantum simulation experiments  under the supervision of Prof. Gyu-Boong Jo since February 2019. In the Prof.Jo's group, Mr. Mak developed a machine learning protocol for analyzing the topological nature of the synthetic quantum system, resulting in unprecedented measurement sensitivity. Mr. Mak's significant contribution to the cutting-edge quantum simulation experiment has been evidenced by several conference papers and a journal paper to be submitted as the leading author.

The Second Runner-Up of the Mr Armin and Mrs Lillian Kitchell Undergraduate Research Award competition was Mr. Tsz Hong KWOK. Mr. Kwok is a 4th year physics undergraduate student who carried out his award-winning research under the supervision of Prof. Michael K.Y. Wong. In Prof. Wong’s undergraduate research group on “Latency Prediction in the Taiwan Highway System”, he played a leading role in screening the relevant data, exploring their applicability, and integrating them into a workable system. He explored the pre-clustering of the traffic data before feeding them the learning machines, resulting in around 10% improvement. He presented his work in two international conferences, in Singapore and Hong Kong respectively.