SMU Teaching and Research Excellence Awards

SMU conducted its annual Teaching and Research Excellence Awards on 19 September 2014 at the Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium. Jointly organised by the Centre for Management Practice (CMP), Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE), Office of Postgraduate Professional Programmes (PGPP) and Office of Research (ORe), the event provided a celebratory platform for acknowledging the highest level of commitment and achievements of SMU’s faculty members. More than 130 faculty members, staff and students turned up for the occasion.

Following the opening remarks by SMU Provost and Deputy President (Academic Affairs) Professor Rajendra Srivastava, SMU President Professor Anoud De Meyer was invited to present the Research Excellence Awards. This award category was established to commend faculty researchers who were actively involved in research and had demonstrated excellence in their area of work. The list of fellowships awarded and their recipients were as follows:

Lee Kuan Yew Fellowship for Research Excellence

• Lim Ee-Peng, Professor of Information Systems, School of Information Systems (SIS)

An accomplished and self-motivated researcher, Professor Lim conducts research on data mining, especially on social media and social network data.  He is the Associate Editor of several top journals including ACM Transactions on Information Systems, ACM Transactions on Web and IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering.  He is also the co-Director of the Living Analytics Research Centre in SIS.

• Kapil Tuli, Associate Professor of Marketing, Lee Kong Chian School of Business  (LKCSB)

Professor Tuli specialises in research on marketing strategy; financial impact of marketing strategy; customer relationships; and customer solutions. He has an outstanding research track record that is evidenced by the papers he has published in leading marketing and management journals.

Sing Lun Fellowship

• Hoon Chang Yau, Assistant Professor of Asian Studies, School of Social Sciences (SOSS)

Assistant Professor Hoon has an established track record of published research that focuses on the intersections between business, religion and the state in Asia. He has a strong research interest in issues related to identity, business practices, religion, philanthropy and education in Indonesia, particularly among the ethnic Chinese. He regularly collaborates with fellow faculty members to conduct interdisciplinary research.

• Liu Yanju, Assistant Professor of Accounting, School of Accountancy (SOA)

Assistant Professor Liu’s primary research areas include corporate disclosure; internal control system; financial reporting quality; and taxation. Since she joined SMU in 2012, Assistant Prof Liu has published two papers in top-tier accounting journals. Some of her research papers are cross-disciplined with finance and sociology. She has a strong pipeline of working papers whereby she collaborates with SMU faculty and well-known researchers overseas.

Della Suantio Fellowship 

• Christopher Chen Chao-Hung, Assistant Professor of Law, School of Law (SOL)

Assistant Prof Chen’s research focuses on legal issues in East and Southeast Asia, with a particular interest in laws in Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. He takes a comparative approach in his works, and studies corporate and financial laws in major Asian markets. He also engages in analyses of laws in US, UK and Europe.

DS Lee Foundation Fellow

• Tang Yuehua, Assistant Professor of Finance, LKCSB

Assistant Professor Tang has a number of publications in the renowned Journal of Finance. His research areas include: mutual funds and hedge funds; institutional investors; and capital markets. He also conducts research to better understand regulations on institutional investors’ portfolio disclosure and macroeconomic news disclosure.  

OUB Professorial Chair of Quantitative Finance

• Lim Kian Guan, Professor of Finance, LKCSB

Professor Lim is a research expert in risk management and quantitative trading; quantitative finance; derivative and fixed income modeling; risk management and banking; asset pricing and capital markets. His research work in the areas of quantitative finance is internationally recognised and his contributions to education are exemplary.

Celia Moh Professorial Chair 

• Phang Sock Yong, Professor of Economics, School of Economics (SOE)

Professor Phang researches in the areas of housing and transport economics, focusing on the impact of government policies on these sectors. She is the author of two books and numerous journal articles on housing, transport, and public-private partnerships, which have been widely cited.  She has also provided expert advice to a range of clients both locally and internationally. 

This year, a new award category was introduced to acknowledge the outstanding contributions of SMU’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) Committee Members. SOSS Associate Professor of Psychology, Angela Leung, was conferred Exemplary IRB Deputy Chairperson. She was appointed as the Deputy Chairperson of SMU IRB on 1 January 2010, and had since worked closely with two IRB Chairmen over the last four years to uphold international standards for protecting research participants. She was also a primary reviewer of IRB applications submitted by SOSS faculty members and had co-chaired IRB Committee meetings that involved discussions on SMU IRB’s policies and processes.

LKCSB Associate Professor of Marketing, Michelle Lee, was conferred Exemplary IRB Committee Member. She has been an IRB Committee Member since the establishment of SMU IRB in January 2007. Not only was she an outstanding contributor to the improvement of IRB policies and processes, she also helped to review IRB applications and served as the acting IRB Deputy Chair from July 2012 to February 2013.

The next award category was the Teaching Excellence Awards that served to acknowledge inspiring educators committed to promoting excellence in teaching at SMU. In the first half of this category, Vice Provost (Undergraduate) Professor Pang Yang Hoong presented the “Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Awards” to the following winners:

• Excellent Teacher: Seow Poh Sun, Associate Professor of Accounting and Associate Dean (Teaching & Curriculum), SOA
• Innovative Teacher: Gary Chan Kok Yew, Associate Professor of Law, SOL
• Most Promising Teachers: Geng Xuesong, Assistant Professor of Strategic Management, LKCSB; Tee Chyng Wen, Assistant Professor of Quantitative Finance, LKCSB
• Outstanding Adjunct: Tan Boon Heng (SOL), District Judge, State Courts of Singapore

The highlight of this category was the Distinguished Educator Award that went to SOE Professor Augustine Tan. In his speech, SOE Dean Bryce Hool paid tribute to Professor Tan, and shared with the audience moving accolades from Dr Tan’s former students and mentees.

The award recipients were selected by the Faculty Advisory Committee for Teaching and Learning, after reviewing evidences of their teaching effectiveness and contributions to the scholarship of teaching and learning.

The second half of the category was dedicated to “Centre for Management Practice and the Postgraduate Professional Programmes Teaching Excellence Awards”. The winners who received their awards from the Provost were:

• Best Assistant / Associate Professor of Practice: Gregor Halff, Associate Professor of Corporate Communication, LKCSB; Michelle Cheong, Associate Professor of Information Systems, SIS
• Provost Award for Management Practice: Sum Yee Loong, Professor of Accounting, SOA
• Teaching Excellence in Postgraduate Professional Programmes: Ang Ser-Keng, Senior Lecturer of Finance, LKCSB; Andrew Lee, Associate Professor of Accounting, SOA
• Teaching Excellence in Executive Development: Augustine Tan, Professor of Economics, SOE

The award recipients were selected by the Evaluation Committee (comprising Professor Rajendra Srivastava, Provost and Deputy President, Professor Francis Koh, Vice Provost (Special Projects), Professor Philip Zerrillo, Dean of PGPP and Steve Wyatt, Executive Director of SMU Executive Development), after reviewing their teaching performances and contributions to scholarship of teaching and learning.

ORe extends its heartiest congratulations to all the recipients and nominees of the awards! 

Back to Research@SMU Issue 18 (Sep 2014)