Lai Ka-ying is Hong Kong’s first astronaut. Her mentor saw her talent years ago

Lai is meticulous and skilled in explaining complex ideas to others, says academic who guided her through her postgraduate studies

If you are working on a space station orbiting hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, the woman set to become Hong Kong’s first astronaut when the mission launches this weekend is exactly the type of person you want by your side, according to the professor who supervised her postgraduate studies.

Lai Ka-ying was meticulous, patient and a skilled communicator who could break down highly technical ideas for others, Chow Kam-pui, an honorary associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, told the South China Morning Post.

Lai, who holds a doctorate in computer science and is a police superintendent, is part of the Shenzhou-23 mission team set to blast off on Sunday and dock with China’s Tiangong space station.

The 43-year-old will serve as a payload specialist, and her years studying cryptography and digital forensics showed that she possessed the intellect and skills that would make her a valuable member of the team, according to Chow.

“She was extremely meticulous. She would follow through on every single detail as a student,” he said.

Chow, from the university’s School of Computing and Data Science, guided Lai through her master’s degree in cryptography and subsequent PhD in digital forensics from 2004 to 2011.