Dear students, alumni, colleagues, and partners of CDE,
March was a month of highlights, with three international days that are significant to our CDE community.
World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development, held on 4 March, highlights the role of engineering in achieving sustainable development goals. On 8 March, we celebrated International Women’s Day, which recognises the achievements of women across the globe, with the 2024 theme being "Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress”, showcasing women's pivotal role in driving economic growth, innovation and social progress. Finally, on 22 March, we celebrated World Water Day, which supports the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.
On our socials, we featured our faculty and researchers who have contributed in different ways to support these causes. This month's newsletter also highlights research news and videos of our researchers from a tumour platform that cuts drug testing and screening time for cancer patients to triple-junction tandem solar cells demonstrating world-record efficiency, from tree upcycling for architectural healing to the innovative use of waste materials to produce more environmentally sustainable cement.
At the heart of all these projects lies the commitment to make a difference and strive for excellence. Kudos to all of our dedicated researchers and faculty members, without whom it would certainly be challenging to forge new frontiers.
Professor Teo Kie Leong
Dean-Designate
College of Design and Engineering (CDE)
HIGHLIGHTS
EVENTS
Shaping the Future of Human-Robot Collaboration
Across leading research institutions, robotics research is increasingly focused on extending human capability through meaningful human–robot collaboration. At Stanford University, this work is particularly focused on environments that are hazardous, remote, or otherwise inaccessible to people; by physically distancing humans from danger while still enabling their skills, intuition, and experience to guide robotic systems, they […]
Reflections and Experiments in Contemporary Korean Housing
This talk examines collective housing in contemporary Korea against an ethical vacuum produced in the process of modernisation in East Asia. This condition arises from the destabilisation of family-based ethics and the incomplete formation of civic ethics. Within this condition, the talk reframes the prevalence of apartment housing in Korea—often developed as large, semi-gated communities—not […]


