Biography
Soh CK received his BEng from Concordia University, Canada, SM from MIT, USA, and PhD from the University of Wales College of Cardiff, UK. Prior to joining NTU, he worked as an offshore engineer with McDermott South East Asia and as a marine surveyor with Noble Denton & Associates Singapore. Over the years at NTU, he has held various appointments such as Vice Dean of the School of Civil & Structural Engineering, head of the Division of Structures & Construction, Assistant Director of Research at NTU Office of Research, as well as Chair of the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering. He is also a Fellow of the Singapore Academy of Engineering since 2012. In June 2020, he joined Southeast University, China, as a Distinguished Professor, and in January 2024, the National University of Singapore as an Adjunct Professor.
As an offshore engineer, Soh CK had designed, fabricated, installed, hooked up and commissioned more than a dozen offshore platforms for the Southeast Asian waters, including laying the then world’s largest submarine pipeline in the E11 gas field off Bintulu for Sarawak Shell. As a marine surveyor, he reviewed and approved on-site numerous construction and marine operations carried out in the shipyards in Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and in just about every shipyard in Singapore. As an academia, CK has published more than two hundred SCI papers, one of which entitled “Fuzzy controlled genetic algorithm search for shape optimization” received the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Best TCCP Paper Award in 1996, another entitled “Design economics of offshore structures: eccentric jacket” received the IES-IStructE (Singapore) Best Structural Paper Award in 2001, and yet another entitled “Performance of smart piezoceramic patches in health monitoring of RC bridge” was in 2011 listed by the Council of Canadian Academies as a top-1% most highly cited paper in its field in the world. His current research interests are in human-centred development of sustainable urban systems and in using smart materials for structural health monitoring, damage prognosis and energy harvesting. He has also co-authored a book on “Analysis and Design of Offshore Structures” published by the Singapore Structural Steel Society in 1991, a PC-based courseware on “Intelligent Interactive Tutoring System for Engineering Mechanics – Statics” published by Pearson-Prentice Hall in 2000, and another book “Smart Materials in Structural Health Monitoring, Control and Bio-mechanics” published by Springer-ZJUP in 2012.
In addition, Soh CK received the NTU College of Engineering First Year Common Engineering Teaching Excellence Award in 2004. That class had more than 1,800 students. As a registered Professional Engineer of Singapore, he has been active in providing consulting services to the offshore and marine industry since the mid-1980s.