New Deans on board
NUS has appointed two eminent academics — Professor Mohan Kankanhalli and Professor Lam Khee Poh — as new Deans of its Schools of Computing, and Design and Environment, respectively.
Prof Kankanhalli will take over from Professor David S Rosenblum effective 1 July 2016, while Prof Lam will succeed Professor Heng Chye Kiang on 18 July 2016.
Currently NUS Vice Provost (Graduate Education), Prof Kankanhalli is responsible for matters relating to Masters and PhD programmes including funding, curriculum, strategy and policy matters. The Provost’s Chair Professor of Computer Science at NUS Computing has research interests in Multimedia Computing, Information Security, Image/Video Processing and Social Media Analysis. He also directs the Sensor-enhanced Social Media Centre which conducts fundamental exploration of social cyberphysical systems.
A world-renowned expert in his field, Prof Kankanhalli has contributed significantly to the area of multimedia content processing, including image and video retrieval, data fusion, visual saliency, computational media aesthetics, as well as multimedia security which encompasses multicamera surveillance, content authentication and privacy.
Prof Kankanhalli felt privileged by the opportunity to lead NUS Computing, noting that under the leadership of Prof Rosenblum and previous Deans, the School is in excellent shape. It has exceptional international research profile, talented faculty members and top quality educational programmes which attract students who have excelled in industry and academia upon graduation.
“Going forward, I want to build upon this legacy to make the school a thought leader in more areas of computing research that will bring increased international recognition while contributing to national priorities like Smart Nation, Cybersecurity, Analytics, Robotics and Healthcare. We aim to make NUS Computing the school of choice for education, research and industry engagement,” he disclosed.
Prof Lam has been a faculty member of the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the US since 2003 and is Project Director in CMU’s Consortium for Building Energy Innovation. Before joining CMU, he was an academic staff at NUS Architecture, with a joint appointment in the Departments of Architecture and Building from 2000 to 2003.
Prof Lam specialises in life-cycle building information modelling and computational design support systems for total building performance analysis and building diagnostics. He has served as the building performance consultant for several major award-winning projects in both the private and public sectors in Singapore, China and the US.
Prof Lam said, “I look forward to engaging with colleagues in the continuous visionary pursuit of a sustainable and resilient habitat for Singapore, founded upon the core values of the School of Design and Environment, that Creative Design is preeminent in every facet of our collective academic endeavour, be it in the social, cultural, aesthetic or in the science, technology and business domains, and such pursuit is firmly rooted both in the Natural and the Built Environment context.”
NUS President Professor Tan Chorh Chuan highlighted that Prof Kankanhalli has done an exceptional job as NUS Vice Provost of Graduate Education, and welcomed Prof Lam back to Singapore to contribute towards the development of Singapore’s higher education sector. He thanked Prof Rosenblum and Prof Heng for their dedication and strong stewardship in leading the respective schools, saying, “Under their visionary leadership, the two schools have produced outstanding work, expanded collaborations with industry and further strengthened their high international reputations.”
