The National University of Singapore (NUS) today recognised nine outstanding individuals for their achievements and contributions in education, research, mentorship and service to the University, Singapore and the global community. They are recipients of the annual NUS University Awards which honour educators, researchers and professionals for their exceptional contributions.
This year, the prestigious Outstanding Service Award was conferred on Mr Seah Moon Ming, Chairman, Board of Governors of NUS High School of Mathematics and Science; and Professor Bernard Tan Cheng Yian, NUS Senior Vice Provost (Undergraduate Education), in recognition of their inspiring leadership and dedicated service. Both are accomplished individuals who have made sustained contributions in selflessly serving the University and society.
Acknowledging Artificial Intelligence (AI) as both a transformative force and a defining opportunity, Prof Tan emphasised that NUS is taking a bold, university-wide approach to embedding AI across education and research. From announcing its AI education strategy in August 2026 to leading four projects under the AI-for-Science national initiative, NUS is moving with intent and at scale. "Determination, endeavour, excellence. These are the very human traits that define the NUS spirit, qualities we look out for as we nurture talent and qualities that will anchor the next AI-powered chapter of NUS," he said.
Besides the Outstanding Service Award, the other award categories are University Research Recognition Award, Young Researcher Award, Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award and Outstanding Educator Award.
Outstanding Service Award
Mr Seah Moon Ming
An engineer by training and veteran corporate leader, Mr Seah Moon Ming has over four decades of service across Singapore's transport, defence, energy and education sectors. As Chairman of the Board of Governors of NUS High School of Mathematics and Science since 2021, he has spearheaded the school's Strategic Plan 2025 - 2029 and forged partnerships with industry and social service organisations to enrich student learning. He is also Chairman of SMRT Corporation Ltd and SMRT Trains Ltd, where he led a cultural transformation anchored in the Kaizen philosophy of continuous improvement. He established the Seah Moon Ming Foundation, which contributes annually to bursaries and scholarships across NUS, NUS High School, Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), polytechnics, Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs) and charity organisations, championing access to education for the next generation of engineers and underprivileged families.
Professor Bernard Tan Cheng Yian
A distinguished academic leader, Professor Bernard Tan Cheng Yian has served in the NUS Office of the Provost for 17 years. As Senior Vice Provost (Undergraduate Education), he has been instrumental in driving curriculum reforms across virtually every College, Faculty and School in the University, advancing interdisciplinary programmes and common admissions to experiential learning, student financial aid and AI integration in education. He chairs the University Committee on Educational Policy and multiple university-wide steering committees covering student information systems and graduate employment. A former President of the Association for Information Systems, he received the organisation's LEO Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2024.
Seven exemplary educators and researchers honoured
The NUS University Awards also celebrated the accomplishments of seven outstanding academics and researchers:
University Research Recognition Award
1) Professor Abhik Roychoudhury, Provost's Chair Professor, Department of Computer Science, School of Computing
Professor Abhik Roychoudhury is a global pioneer in automated program repair and software security. He is the driving force behind AutoCodeRover, commercialised as the SonarQube Remediation Agent now used by enterprises worldwide. He pioneered research in greybox fuzzing, reinvigorating the field of security testing. The power schedule algorithm he introduced is now embedded by default in AFL++, the industry-standard fuzzing engine. His work on directed greybox fuzzing further underpins Google's OSS-Fuzz, which has uncovered over 13,000 software vulnerabilities across more than 1,000 critical software projects.
2) Professor Ashok Venkitaraman, Distinguished Professor, Department of Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine; and Director, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore
A globally recognised leader in cancer biology, Professor Ashok Venkitaraman is best known for uncovering the biological functions of the BRCA2 tumour suppressor gene and establishing the scientific foundations for targeted cancer therapies. Beyond this, he has elucidated mechanisms governing DNA repair and chromosome segregation, and connected genome maintenance to metabolic and environmental stressors to enable early cancer interception. He has also pioneered innovative technologies for drug development and target discovery, leading to the creation of multiple university spin-out companies including co-founding PhoreMost.
Young Researcher Award
3) Associate Professor Cynthia Chen Huijun, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health
A leading public health economist, Associate Professor Cynthia Chen Huijun's research has translated directly into policy and practice. Her key contributions include developing the Future Elderly Model for Singapore to project disease burden and evaluate preventive strategies, generating evidence that incentive-based, tracker-enabled programmes improve health behaviour in Singapore, and leading the creation of a 143-country index measuring societal adaptation to population ageing that has informed policy on G20 and ASEAN platforms. She has also been recognised as one of the World's Top 2% Scientists for 2025 by Elsevier.
4) Assistant Professor Liu Boxiang, Presidential Young Professor, Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Science
Assistant Professor Liu Boxiang recently won the 2026 Young Scientist Award at this year's President's Science & Technology Awards (PSTA). He leads the Liu Lab for Genomic Data Science, bridging genomics, statistics and machine learning to advance understanding of complex and autoimmune diseases. Among his key breakthroughs are the establishment of a single-cell sQTL atlas across diverse Asian populations, offering new insights into cell-type-specific genetic regulation in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and the development of LocusCompare2, a platform for reproducible causal gene identification.
Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award
5) Professor Liu Xiaogang, Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science; and Department of Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
A global leader in nanophotonics and bioimaging, Prof Liu Xiaogang has made transformative contributions to the development of advanced X-ray imaging and optical sensing technologies. He has built a research environment that is intellectually demanding yet highly supportive, tailoring the level of structure, pace, and support to each student while holding all mentees to the same standards of scientific rigour, integrity and evidence-based reasoning. Over a career spanning nearly two decades at NUS, he has mentored more than 40 PhD students, 45 Master's students, and over 50 postdoctoral fellows.
Outstanding Educator Award
6) Associate Professor Robin Loon Seong Yun, Department of English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
An award-winning theatre educator and scholar, Associate Professor Robin Loon Seong Yun's teaching philosophy centres on community, empathy, and experiential learning. He co-founded Centre 42 to champion Singapore storytelling and held leadership roles including Director of Teaching and Learning at the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology. A consistent presence on the NUS Annual Teaching Excellence Honour Roll, he is also a published authority on Singapore theatre history and performance.
7) Associate Professor Stephen Tay En Rong, Department of the Built Environment, College of Design and Engineering
Associate Professor Stephen Tay En Rong is a sustainable energy educator best known for developing the Contextualised Learning via Enquiring, Answering, and Reflecting (CLEAR) pedagogical framework, which fosters curiosity and critical thinking and has been adopted across Singapore and in universities across six countries. Beyond his own classroom, he has actively mentored fellow educators to cultivate the same spirit of enquiry and collaborative learning among their students. He has been consecutively recognised with the College Educator Award from the College of Design and Engineering, and has been featured regularly on the NUS Annual Teaching Excellence Honour Roll over the years.
Please refer to the Awards Booklet
