People
CERT
Prof LEE Poh Seng
DIRECTOR
Prof. Poh Seng (PS) Lee is a globally recognised expert in sustainable data center cooling technologies and energy efficiency, with a particular focus on tropical environments. As the Executive Director of the Energy Studies Institute (ESI) at the National University of Singapore, Prof. Lee spearheads cutting-edge research that bridges academia, industry, and government to develop innovative solutions for pressing energy challenges. He is also the Co-Director of the Singapore Energy Consortium (SEC) and the Director of the Centre for Energy Research & Technology (CERT) at NUS, where he leads efforts in advancing sustainable energy technologies and policies.
With over two decades of research and academic experience, Prof. Lee has made significant contributions to high-performance cooling techniques, particularly in microchannel single-phase and two-phase cooling. His pioneering work in green data center cooling and power has earned him prestigious recognitions, including being named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Energy Institute (EI), and the Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES). He is the recipient of numerous research and innovation awards including 2013 NUS Faculty of Engineering’s Young Faculty Research Award, 2011 Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES) Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award, 2011 Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit Top 10 Defense Energy Technology Solutions Award and 2009 Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors Award (TKKYIA) – Defense Science.
Prof. Lee has secured over S$25 million in research grants and has been instrumental in establishing the Sustainable Tropical Data Centre Testbed (STDCT), an open innovation platform that collaborates with leading data center stakeholders to co-develop and validate sustainable cooling solutions in real-world settings. His research has consistently ranked him among the top 1% of scientists globally in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
Associate Prof. YANG Wenming
CO-LEAD FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Associate Professor Wenming Yang
Associate Professor Wenming Yang is the Dean’s Chair in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at National University of Singapore. He is also the editor-in-chief of Energy Engineering and Associate Editor for the ASME Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbine and Power, Alexandria Engineering Journal etc. His research interests includes: development of the next generation marine engine with high efficiency and net-zero GHG emissions, fuel design for greener and sustainable power generation, combustion and emissions control etc. He has authored/co-authored more than 400 papers in peer-reviewed reputable journals (such as Nature Communication, Applied Energy etc) and international conferences, of which, more than 330 papers are SCI index. His papers have been cited by more than 18400 times with a H-index of 71. He is also the regular reviewer for a lot of peer-reviewed reputable journals such as Nature, Joule, Nano Energy, Progress in Energy and Combustion Sciences, and many more.
Associate Prof. Md Raisul Islam
CO-LEAD FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Associate Prof. PALANI Balaya
LEAD FOR ENERGY STORAGE
Just after graduating from Hyderabad University, India (1993) in the area of Solid State Ionics, Dr. Palani Balaya joined IISc, Bangalore as a Research Associate (1994-1996) and worked on insulating materials. He later joined the Inter University Consortium Mumbai, as a Scientist (1996-2001) before moving to Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart as a Guest Scientist (2001-2006) to work in the area of Nano-ionics. Dr. Palani Balaya joined the Faculty of Engineering, NUS as an Assistant Professor in January 2007. Since July 2014, he works as an Associate Professor at NUS. His research areas include energy conversion and storage. Specifically he works on fast chargeable lithium-ion battery for EV applications, sodium-ion battery for micro-grid and solar housing applications. He is one of the founding members of Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore in NUS. He serves as a Topical (Battery, Fuel Cell, Capacitor) Editor for the Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry (Jan. 2013-Decem. 2018). He has been elected as Fellow of American Ceramic Society (ACerS) in March 2019. He was also recognized by the Society as an ACerS Global Ambassador (2016), recipient of Global Star Award (2015) from ACerS, Late Shri Har Mahandar Singh Chhatwal Memorial Award (2015) from Indian Ceramic Society, Shell Ideas360 Passionate Mentor (2015) from the Shell Companies in Singapore, the Max Planck Fellowship, etc. He has served in Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a Co-ordinating Lead Author for the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation, in 2011. He serves in international advisory boards for several conferences on Energy Storage, also successfully organized several conferences/symposia on Batteries and Energy Storage in Singapore, USA, Canada, Mexico etc., Up to date, he has published 100 articles, filed 25 patents and delivered more than 75 Invited/Keynote/Plenary talks.
Associate Professor Stefan ADAMS
CO-LEAD FOR ENERGY STORAGE
Prof Adams’ group group combines electrochemical and structural (diffraction, NMR) operando experimental studies on materials, interfaces and devices for sustainable energy applications with computational materials science approaches (charge transport pathways from bond valence analysis, multilevel MD simulations, artificial intelligence) to advance the development of Li/Na-based batteries, aqueous and hybrid metal-air, Li/Na – S/Se, redox flow batteries etc. Recently we also take up battery lifecycle studies, predicting and managing battery performance during second-life as well as battery materials recycling. Thereby we contribute to enabling high energy density batteries for sustainable grid support and e-mobility in the form of safer, low cost and sustainable high performance batteries.
Associate Professor Sanjib K PANDA
LEAD FOR SMART GRID
Prof Panda is an expert in power engineering and associated technology fusion, both at the component-level and at the systems-level. More than 25 years of research experience in power electronics, converter control, electric drives and energy systems has garnered him pragmatic insight towards the technology implementations. He supervises the development of renewable source integrated microgrid test-bed at ECE Department and is well-versed with the subtleties in operation of such complex systems. His current interests include grid-integration of renewable energy sources, green data centers, integrated chemical and electrical system operation, intelligent building controls, wireless sensor-actuator networks, smart-metering, power quality, demand side management using electric springs, predictive maintenance via condition monitoring and high-altitude wind power harnessing.
Prof LIU Bin
LEAD FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
Prof Liu’s overall research goal is to design, synthesize and characterize new materials with an emphasis on their applications in nano-biotechnology and clean energy. Her group is creating an active programme of research which bridges areas of materials science, polymer chemistry, nano-science, bio-technology and device fabrication. Her current research interests include bioprobes based on fluorogens with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics, conjugated polymers for bioimaging and cellular detection and development of dye-sensitized and perovskite solar cells.
Professor Ifthekar Abubakar KARIMI
LEAD FOR NATURAL GAS
Prof Karimi’s main research interests are in the area of Process Systems Engineering. His current work focuses on energy systems including natural gas supply chain, process optimization, process operations, process synthesis, energy integration, carbon capture and utilization, and systems biology. Over the years, he has managed industry collaborative projects with several local chemical and logistics companies and addressed a variety of practical problems.
Professor Praveen LINGA
CO-LEAD FOR NATURAL GAS
Praveen LINGA is a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He holds a PhD (2009) from the University of British Columbia, Canada in Chemical Engineering. His research interests are in the areas of clathrate (gas) hydrates, storage and transport of fuels, carbon dioxide capture, storage & utilization (CCS & U), seawater desalination and recovery of energy. He is interested in fundamental and applied aspects of research. His research group at NUS particularly focuses on enhancing the kinetics of hydrate formation for several applications of interest by developing novel reactor designs, experimental methods and techniques. Up to date, he has published more than 50 research articles and delivered about 20 keynote/invited talks. He serves as an associate editor in the Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering (Elsevier, Oxford UK).
Energy Efficiency
Prof. Massimo Alioto
Expertise:
- Energy-efficient and miniaturized integrated circuits and systems (“silicon chips”) with full sensing, processing and data sensemaking capabilities
- Enabling of ubiquitous and continuous sensing of environmental parameters that permit to use energy and other resources in a more efficient manner (e.g., first millimetre-sized autonomous CO2 sensor for green buildings with very energy efficient air conditioning)
Prof. Yang Wenming
Expertise:
- Development of clean combustion technologies for sustainable transportation system and power plants, especially on internal combustion engines, various boiler systems and micro power generation systems.
Associate Prof. Koh Yee Kan
Dr. Koh received a B.Eng. (1st class honors) and a M.Eng. both in Mechanical Engineering from University of Technology Malaysia. In 2004, he enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and obtained a M.S. in Physics in 2007 and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2010 from the university. Dr. Koh’s expertise is in heat transport in nanostructures and across interfaces, with emphasis on applications in thermoelectric energy conversion. He is an expert in time-domain thermoreflectance, a pump-probe technique to measure the thermal properties of nanostructures using an ultrafast Ti:sapphire laser. He has received numerous awards, including the highly competitive NUS Young Investigator Award (2011), the Ross Martin award (2010), the Racheff-Intel award (2009) and the prestigious Fulbright fellowship (2004).
- Physics of energy transport by phonons in bulk materials and nanostructures.
- Energy transport across interfaces and molecular chains.
- Engineering thermal properties of emerging materials.
- Waste heat recovery
- In-situ spot cooling in electronic devices, via thermoelectric
Senior Lecturer Sng Wei Meng, Daniel
Dr Daniel Sng is a lecturer at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the National University of Singapore. He obtained his joint Ph.D. (Building Science) from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). His Ph.D. work evaluated the shortcomings of conventional air-conditioning systems, and proposed a novel enhancement to the existing system with aims to save energy as well as to improve occupants’ thermal comfort. After completing his doctoral work, Dr Sng joined the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) in NUS as a Programme Manager and a Post-Doc. He was involved in the field of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) and its application in the tropics.
Expertise:
- Green technology features ranging from energy efficient building mechanical systems to photovoltaics where many green buildings have adopted in Singapore
- Energy efficiency and conservation of building HVAC systems
- Renewable energy applications for buildings in the tropics, green building design and practice
- Application of building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) in the tropics which include analytical works on all building mechanical system components, human factors such as thermal and indoor comfort perceptions and their responses to the climate change
Prof. Sanjib Kumar Panda
As the Director of the Electrical Machines and Drives Laboratory (EMDL), Prof Panda is involved in Electrical Energy Efficiency enhancement in industries for various processes, such as in-situ monitoring electrical drivers and improve efficiency in power conversion in different energy mixes and AC/DC-DC/AC conversion.
Prof. Karimi
Expertise:
- Energy efficiency in chemical industry
- Process integration
- Plant optimization
Prof. C.Y Chen
Expertise:
- Scalable polymer-based heat exchanger with modular microfluidic channel core
- Adaptive control of on-demand data-center cooling
Energy Storage
Prof. Lee Jim Yang
Expertise:
- Lithium-ion, sodium-ion, lithium-sulfur, rechargeable metal-air, and redox flow batteries
- Direct alcohol fuel cells and capacitor-battery systems
- Thermal storage compounds and membrane fouling control
- Size and shape-controlled synthesis and assembly of inorganic nanomaterials
Prof. Wang Qing
Expertise:
- Efficient energy conversion and high energy/power density energy storage in mesoscopic systems, such as nanostructured sensitized solar cells and lithium ion batteries
- Developments of sensitized mesoscopic photoelectrochemical cells for low-cost and high-efficiency solar energy harnessing
- Development of redox flow lithium batteries (RFLB) for high-safety and high-energy density stationary and automotive energy storage
Prof. Liu Bin
Expertise:
- Integration of Solar Cells and Storage
Smart Grid
Prof. Dipti Srinivasan
Expertise:
- Development of advanced computational intelligent-based methods and their practical applications for large complex engineered systems, such as the smart grid and urban transportation systems
- Power system optimization and control
- Wind and solar power prediction
- Generation scheduling
- Development of multi-agent systems for micro-grid operation and control
Associate Professor Ashwin M. Khambadkone
Expertise:
- Distributed Energy Resources Networks
- Fuel Cell based Systems
- Control of Power Electronics based Energy systems
- Digital Control of PFC and VRM and Multi-level Inverters
Natural Gas, CCUS.
Prof. Chung Tai-Shung Neal
Expertise:
- Purification of Natural Gas (CO2 Removal)
- LNG Cold Energy Utilization for Desalination
- Membranes for purification of natural gas
Prof. Shamsuzzaman Farooq
Expertise:
- Absorption and Diffusion of Gases in Novel Adsorbents
- Adsorber Dynamics and PSA Processes
- Adsorption Technology for Clean Energy Application
- Process Modeling, Simulation and Optimization
Professor Yan Ning
Expertise:
- Valorisation of Alternative Carbon Resource
- Development of new catalysts for converting light alkanes into alkenes and alcohols
Assoc. Prof. Zhao Dan
Expertise:
- Gas Storage & Separation
- Desalination & Nanofiltration
- Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs)
- Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs)
- Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Membranes
Prof. Jiang Jianwen
Expertise:
- Computational materials modeling and statistical thermodynamics, currently focused on gas hydrates, nanoporous and membrane materials for energy, environmental and pharmaceutical applications (e.g. natural gas upgrading, carbon capture, water desalination and drug delivery).
- Computational Materials Modeling (Porous Materials and Membranes)
- Molecular Simulation
- Molecular Thermodynamics
Prof. Karimi
Expertise:
- Process Modelling and Simulation
- Process Synthesis and Optimization
- LNG Supply Chain