On 1 July 2021, NUS conferred upon Professor Yeo Swee Ping the title of Emeritus Professor in recognition of his sterling contributions in teaching, research as well as service.
Teaching:
Prof Yeo taught a diversity of modules during his university career which spanned more than 40 years. His dedication during classroom lessons was consistently commended by students and NUS Vice-Chancellor thereafter presented him with the Teaching Excellence Award which was based on his impressive teaching performance.
Prof Yeo was also instrumental in spearheading a number of new teaching programs for the benefit of the ECE student community. He launched the independent study program to provide the platform for ECE undergraduates to develop traits such as creativity, resourcefulness and life-long learning; this initiative was so successful that the accreditation panel from the UK’s Institution of Electrical Engineers commended in their evaluation report that “… this is clearly an innovative approach.” Also to his credit is the unflagging manner he coordinated the ECE portion of the double-degree program that NUS established with various Grande Écoles (Paris, France). In addition, he implemented the joint PhD program that ECE Department initiated with École Supérieure d’Électricité (Paris, France).
Research
Specializing in microwave couplers, electromagnetic modelling and six-port reflectometry, Prof Yeo pioneered a number of research breakthroughs that resulted in three of his journal papers being selected for best paper prizes by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (London, UK) — two for Electronics Letters Premium and another for Ambrose Fleming Premium. In addition, one of his conference papers was ranked among the top three papers presented at the 19th annual meeting of the Automated & RF Microwave Measurement Society (Leeds, UK). Apart from these research prizes he received from international learned societies, he was also presented the Outstanding University Researcher Award by NUS Vice-Chancellor.
Prof Yeo’s expertise in microwave engineering was also sought by industry. Chartered Microwaves (Ayer Rajah, Singapore) appointed him as consultant to propose novel power-divider designs for use in their microwave-amplifier modules. Hewlett Packard (Santa Rosa, USA) invited him to update the error-correction section of their training manual for the HP8510 line of network analyzers. He was engaged by National Physical Laboratory (Great Malvern, UK) to provide technical advice for their research on symmetrical waveguide junctions. Optotek (Ottawa, Canada) requested for his microstrip-coupler model to be incorporated into their MMICAD Linear Simulator software suite.
Service
Prof Yeo’s service contributions are evident from the following leadership appointments that he assumed at different stages of his university career:
- Sub-Dean of Engineering Faculty
- Deputy Head (Administration) of ECE Department
- Deputy Head (Academic) of ECE Department
- Head of ECE Department
- Chairman of Curriculum Review Committee
- Chairman of Department Evaluation Committee
- Chairman of Faculty Promotion & Tenure Committee
- Chairman of Interactive & Digital Media Taskforce (which was specially convened by NUS President)
- Co-Director under Supélec-ONERA-NUS-DSTA Research Alliance.
Professor Yeo also served on various IEEE committees — Publicity Chairman of IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference 1995, Technical Program Chairman of IEEE International Conference on Communication Systems 1996, General Co-Chairman of Asia Pacific Microwave Conference 2009 and Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory & Techniques. In addition, he had been invited to sit on the International Advisory Committees of IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Technology Conference 1994 (held in Hamamatsu, Japan) and International Conference on Antennas, Radiocommunications Systems & Means 1997 (held in Voronezh, Russia).
Other universities had also approached Prof Yeo for academic advice. He had been appointed to the International Advisory Board of Victoria University of Wellington (Wellington, New Zealand) to provide recommendations on the new undergraduate programs mounted by their Faculty of Engineering. Recognizing the need to reinforce globalization efforts, Korea Institute of Advanced Science & Technology (Daejeon, South Korea) invited him to join their Global Advisory Committee to proffer assistance on various initiatives.
