NTU people of the year – HEY!'s picks
As 2025 came to a wrap, HEY! picked 10 NTU folks who stood out
by Derek Rodriguez
TAN LIP-BU
Tech titan
This NTU alumnus shot into the global spotlight last March when he was named CEO of Intel and put in charge of reviving the American company. He even met US President Donald Trump, who later wrote in a social media post: “His success and rise is an amazing story.”
It would be far from his first success. That, he says, was entering NTU.
His bond with his alma mater runs particularly deep. As a child, he grew up on campus with his mum, a hostel administrator here. Enrolling as a student was a natural progression, and he went on to graduate with a physics degree at 19. Over the years, he has remained close to NTU. He served as a Trustee from 2006 to 2011 and has given generously to NTU, including a gift that established NTU’s first Artificial Intelligence (AI) professorship.
VANNES WIJAYA
Viral champ
Computer science student Vannes catapulted to fame in Indonesia when he outsmarted top minds from Oxford and Stanford to win a popular competition show in his home country. NTU’s social media post on his victory exploded with activity too, pulling in over 5 million views and over 300,000 likes, comments and shares. Has the instant celeb’s life changed? Read our interview with him here.
THEODORE KWAN
Science prodigy
Many prodigious talents have passed through NTU’s lecture theatres, but seven-year-old Theodore might be the youngest ever. Known for stumping adult undergrads with his questions to the prof in chemistry lectures last year, he’s back this semester to sit in on organic chemistry lectures. Click here for our chat with his mum, an NTU PhD student.
YIP YEW CHONG
The heritage painter
About the length of a bus, a painting honouring the legacy of Singapore pioneer Dr Wee Cho Yaw now stretches along a corridor of the Nanyang Business School building. While its artist, Yew Chong, has painted NTU before, this is the first of his works to grace the campus itself. Widely regarded as one of Singapore’s most prolific artists, the former finance professional is behind much of the familiar street art and murals that bring colour and life to neighbourhoods like Chinatown, Kampong Glam and Tiong Bahru. This latest piece carries even deeper personal significance. NTU was where he met his wife – his classmate at the business school – and where both his children graduated from.
GAVIN LEE
Pride of the Lions
Photo: @gavin13lee
With Gavin at the helm as interim coach, Singapore’s national football team made history in November by qualifying for the Asian Cup for the first time. The achievement earned him a full appointment as head coach, making the 35-year-old NTU sport science & management graduate the youngest to lead the national team in nearly 40 years. Adding to the remarkable storyline, two members of the victorious squad, captain Hariss Harun and goalkeeper Izwan Mahbud, were once his teammates in the youth ranks.
VINCERE ZENG
Queen of peaks
Some people peak once. Vincere keeps doing it. In 2023, she became the first Singaporean and Southeast Asian woman to summit Everest, Lhose and K2, achieving this feat in a span of 70 days. And she’s not showing any signs of slowing down. Last year, she charted new territory as the first Singaporean to summit the notoriously dangerous Annapurna in Nepal, and was the first Singaporean woman to stand atop Makalu near Mount Everest. So far, the NTU mathematics graduate has checked off six of the world’s 10 highest mountains.
Vincere at Camp 4 on Everest, the final camp for climbers before they make the push to the summit.
SAMANTHA LEE
Emmy award winner
Photo: Children’s & Family Emmy Awards
Fifteen years ago, Samantha was an undergraduate rigging roller chairs into makeshift beds as she pulled all-nighters in the animation studios of the School of Art, Design & Media. Today, she’s an Emmy award-winning director in Hollywood, picking up the accolade last year for her work on Disney’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Next in her exciting career is a role as a story artist for Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the final instalment in the Spider-Verse trilogy.
CHUA TZE HEAN
The healer at heart
NTU medical students learn early that empathy is just as important as anatomy. And Tze Hean embodies that fully. The 2025 medical graduate with a passion for community service started A Good Meal in 2024 as a fourth-year student, taking seniors out for fresh air and good food, often paying out of his own pocket. With the support of fellow volunteers, including other NTU students, he has organised 36 outings (and counting) for elderly individuals from active ageing centres. It came as no surprise that he capped the year as the deserving winner of NTU’s award for humanitarian work at the Nanyang Awards 2025.
FIRDAUS GHAZALI
Parade commander
Photo: NDP 2025 EXCO
When Singapore turned 60, all eyes were on one man: Lieutenant Colonel Firdaus Ghazali, parade commander of one of the largest National Day Parades in the nation’s history, leading a formation of over 2,000 individuals. A natural leader, Firdaus learnt the power of teamwork during his NTU days, cutting his teeth working in tight-knit groups, including on an electric vehicle prototype for his final-year project.
CHIEW KANG JING
The Archie artist
Kang Jing at New York Comic Con with the cast of Power Rangers holding the Singapore-themed cover he created.
For a brief moment, Archie and the gang left Riverdale for a stroll through Gardens by the Bay, thanks to Kang Jing. The artist, who works full time in the biopharmaceutical industry, created the cover illustration in conjunction with SG60 for a special Archie Comics issue released in August 2025. He had pitched the Supertrees cover idea to the publisher in New York, who loved it. Though he’s found success as an illustrator for Power Rangers, Marvel, Star Wars and more, the chemistry & biological chemistry graduate isn’t ready to give up his day job just yet. He’s perfectly happy with what he calls his “science by day, imagination by night” routine.
Titled Summer Fun in the Sun, the special issue with Kang Jing’s cover sold out quickly and is now a collector’s item.
This story was published in the Jan-Feb 2026 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.
