Professor Rajasekhar Balasubramanian (Civil and Environmental Engineering) has been appointed as the inaugural “Keppel Professor in Sustainability Solutions”, a new professorship at CDE established as part of an enhanced collaboration between Keppel Corporation and the College.

On 5 December 2023, an MoU signing ceremony was held at NUS to establish the new professorship and boost the Keppel Bursary for Engineering for CDE undergraduates. The Keppel Professorship will fund sustainability-related research, including public outreach campaigns and lectures related to sustainability. It replaces the former Keppel Chair Professorship, which sought to strengthen Singapore's competitiveness in the ocean, marine and offshore industry.

Prof Balasubramanian, who takes up the post, has research interests in environmental sustainability, climate change and urban air quality. His work provides policy-relevant scientific inputs and contributes to developing cost-effective technologies to mitigate the impacts of air pollution.

The new professorship is supported by a gift of S$1.4 million made by Keppel Care Foundation in 2012. In addition, Keppel will also contribute a further S$170,000 over the next five years to support activities related to the professorship.

This will include hosting lectures by world-renowned experts to facilitate knowledge discovery and raise public awareness about issues such as climate change and reducing carbon emissions.

Separately, Keppel will also gift S$500,000 to NUS to enhance the Keppel Bursary for Engineering in line with the rising cost of living. Established in 2014, the Bursary is awarded to financially disadvantaged undergraduate students from NUS pursuing engineering. The top-up will enable NUS to support more students each year and will increase the quantum of each award, rendering more substantive financial assistance to the recipients. The donation will raise the current value of each bursary from S$3,000 to S$5,000 per annum and increase the number of awarded bursaries from an average of 16 per academic year to 18 per academic year. Since the inception of the Keppel Bursary for Engineering, a total of 126 bursaries have been awarded.

Mr Loh Chin Hua, CEO of Keppel, said: “The new Keppel Professorship in Sustainability Solutions reflects Keppel’s purpose and focus on sustainability, while the top-up to the Keppel Bursary for Engineering will enhance accessibility to education for engineering students, amidst rising costs of living.”

NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye, said: “This renewed partnership between NUS and Keppel is testament to our strong commitment towards shaping a more sustainable future by advancing sustainability education and research as well as ensuring that undergraduates from all financial backgrounds can fully participate and benefit from the transformative education that NUS offers.”