Assoc Prof Fei Xunchang Named 2026 National Champion by Frontiers Planet Prize

The School is pleased to share that the Frontiers Planet Prize has named Associate Professor Fei Xunchang as Singapore’s National Champion for 2026. He is among 25 exceptional scientists whose research advances our understanding of our Earth system, while offering practical, scalable solutions to help keep humanity safely within the planetary boundaries.

The Frontiers Planet Prize will award three scientists $1 million each per year and fast-track transformative research with the power to shape real-world outcomes. It is the world’s largest global science competition dedicated to planetary health.

The research article that secured Assoc Prof Fei the National Champion award is titled “Methane Emissions from Landfills Differentially Underestimated Worldwide”, published in Nature Sustainability.

Reflecting on the achievement, Assoc Prof Fei said: “An improved, readily integratable method has been developed for the landfill methane emission model developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The new method demonstrates significantly higher accuracy and reveals up to 200% underestimations of methane emissions from individual landfills, which validate other studies using satellite remote sensing and inversion modelling.”

“The findings highlight the importance of prioritizing monitoring and mitigation of landfill emissions as one of the most cost-effective strategies for curbing global methane emissions,” he added.

Within the decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors domain, research from Assoc Prof Fei and his team finds that landfill methane emissions may be underestimated by up to 200% at individual sites, highlighting a major opportunity for near-term mitigation. The report outlines a pathway focused on strengthening methane monitoring and reduction in waste systems.

About the Frontiers Planet Prize
The Frontiers Planet Prize is a global competition for scientists and research institutions to propose solutions to help the planet remain within the safe operating space of any one or more of the nine planetary boundaries. 

Related Media Releases: 

• https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2026/04/22/worlds-leading-science-competition-announces-25-international-pioneers-who-can-help-humanity-live-within-earths-boundaries 
• https://www.dispatch.com/press-release/story/177087/leading-science-competition-announces-25-international-pioneers-who-can-help-humanity-live-within-earths-boundaries/