FACULTY AWARDS & RECOGNITION
Architecture & Built Environment clinches awards at ACM BuildSys 2024
We are thrilled to congratulate Iqbal Shah, President's Graduate Fellow & PhD candidate (Built Environment) and Assistant Professor Ali Ghahramani (Director, Building Robotics Laboratory) for winning the Best Poster and Demonstration Award at the ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation (ACMBuildSys) 2024 for their remarkable work, "Scalable Automation of Building Control Loops via Geospatial Semantic-Enriched Digital Twins".
This was their first time attending the conference, and they look forward to many more opportunities to participate and contribute! Find out more about their research here.
Special recognition also goes to Matias Quintana, Research Fellow, and his team, led by Assistant Professor Filip Biljecki (Director, NUS Urban Analytics Lab) from the Building Robotics Laboratory sibling lab, NUS Urban Analytics Lab, who secured the Runner-Up for Best Poster and Demonstration Award!
Department of Architecture’s Material Interface wins iF DESIGN AWARD 2025
The Department of Architecture’s Material Interface Experience Library (Material Interface) has received the iF DESIGN AWARD 2025 in the User Experience (UX) discipline, under the Interior/Architecture category!
Designed by the SkyTimber Lab led by Associate Professor Shinya Okuda, Material Interface is a hybrid gallery that features a carefully curated collection of up to 300 material samples, accessible for both physical interaction and digital engagement via QR codes.
As digital modelling and 3D printing technologies advance, the tangible understanding of materials has increasingly diminished in architectural education. Material Interface was conceived to address this gap: restoring the essential, hands-on relationship with materials in the digital era.
The materials are displayed in both vertical and horizontal drawers, allowing users to engage with samples in an immersive and tactile manner. Users can touch, feel, and weigh the material samples while simultaneously exploring related information online with QR codes, enabling a spontaneous and enriched design process.
Learn more about Material Interface here: https://cde.nus.edu.sg/news-detail/department-of-architectures-material-interface-wins-if-design-award-2025/
Assistant Professor Andy Tay receives Young Scientist Award from BioEM Society
Congratulations to Assistant Professor Andy Kah Ping Tay from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, who has received the Young Scientist Award from the Bioelectromagnetics (BioEM) Society.
Presented annually, the award recognises early-career researchers for outstanding contributions to the field of bioelectromagnetics, which explores the interaction of electromagnetic (EM) fields with biological systems. Recipients are evaluated on the originality and impact of their research, scientific independence, publication record, and overall contributions to the field. The award came with a EUR5000 award and an invitation to deliver a keynote speech in Rennes in June. He is the Singaporean selected for this award.
“It was an honour receiving the Young Scientist Award from the BioEM Society,” said Assistant Professor Tay. “I learnt much about how bioEM permeates many aspects of our lives, including the effects of EM waves on cancer and using it for applications. With the rollout of 5G, there are concerns about the long-term health effects of high-frequency EM waves, making this area of research really important for public health and economic development.”
Asst Prof Tay has also been recognised with the following in 2025:
- Asia Pacific Research Networking Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society Singapore, which came with a fully paid two-week exchange programme with other scientific leaders in Asia Pacific. He was the only Singaporean selected in 2025.
- Early Career Award, International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE)/International Federation for Medical Electronics and Biological Engineering IFMBE, that came with a US$3000 award and an invitation to deliver a keynote speech in the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM) World Congress 2025. He was the only Singaporean selected in 2025.
- Asia Pacific Biomedical Engineering Consortium Young Scholars Award, with the opportunity to present a lecture at Tsinghua University. He was the only Singaporean selected in 2025.
Professor Quek Ser Tong receives the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability (IASSAR) Distinguished Research Award 2025
Congratulations to Professor Quek Ser Tong from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering who was conferred the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability (IASSAR) Distinguished Research Award 2025. The award is presented every four years to up to three eminent senior researchers in recognition of sustained quality research in the general field of Structural Safety and Reliability.
Professor Quek represents the first academic from Southeast Asia to be accorded such recognition. “I appreciate the support provided by NUS to pursue over 40 years of research, enabling me to be elected to join the distinguished group of academics in the field of structural safety and reliability”, said Professor Quek.
Read more here.
Professor Adrian Law elected as Fellow by the International Association of Hydro-environment Engineering and Research (IAHR)
Professor Adrian Law from Civil and Environmental Engineering, was elected as a Fellow by the International Association of Hydro-environment Engineering and Research (IAHR).
IAHR, founded in 1935, is a worldwide independent organisation of engineers and water specialists working in fields related to the hydro-environmental sciences and their practical applications.
The recognition acknowledges his outstanding contributions to hydro-environment engineering and research, as well as to the advancement of IAHR.
Electrical & Computer Engineering research team honoured with Best Poster Award at The IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2025)
The IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2025), organised by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, was held from June 8 – June 12 2025 in Hangzhou, China, drawing over 500 participants from 34 countries. A research team from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CDE, NUS, was honored with the Best Poster Award for their work titled “Physics-Informed Optimization via Ising Spin System Evolution”. This paper was authored by Electrical Engineering PhD candidate Wujie Fu, Senior Research Fellow Dr Anupam Trivedi, Professor Aaron Danner and Professor Dipti Srinivasan.