Building What Outlasts You: Professor Yeong Wai Yee's Years Leading MAE

Professor Yeong featured in MAE Connect September 2006 Issue.

Twenty years ago, a school magazine ran a photograph of a young PhD student holding a 3D-printed skull. The student was Yeong Wai Yee, and the field she had chosen did not yet go by the name that would define her career. It was still called rapid prototyping.

She had picked the topic, a printed scaffold for blood-vessel tissue engineering, out of curiosity rather than calculation. As she would later put it, the decision was driven purely by interest, by a fascination with the beauty of technology and the wonders of life.

Nearly two decades on, she steps down at the end of August as the first female Chair of the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), having led it since 2023 and served as Associate Chair (Students) from 2018.

A single instinct runs through her time in the role. She built things designed to grow beyond her, then trusted the school to carry them forward.

A community for women in engineering. A regional gathering of academic leaders. An academic journal. A degree more than a decade in the making. These are not the close of a term. They are its beginning.

Championing Women in STEM

WoMAEn grew from a straightforward conviction: that women across MAE deserved a community of their own.

Professor Yeong co-founded it in 2023 with a graduating student, Zhou Xuanle (Class of 2024), and a faculty advisor, Associate Professor Hortense Le Ferrand, giving it something that would let it last. It was built as a student-led community, run and passed on by the students themselves.

That structure is what let it grow. It now runs mentorship schemes, networking dinners, resume workshops and a researchers' chapter, with alumni returning each year as speakers and mentors, and a new student chair taking the reins each cohort.

She then connected it outward, building a collaboration with POWERS, NTU's university-wide platform for women in research. What began within one school became part of a far wider network.

That commitment drew recognition in its own right. In 2025, GovInsider's Women in GovTech report named her among 113 women innovators from 30 countries, a reflection of how she put mentorship and inclusion at the centre of how she led.

Professor Yeong Wai Yee featured in GovInsider Women in GovTech 2025 report. Photo credit: GovInsider

A Researcher Who Kept Building

Alongside her work as Chair, Professor Yeong remained deeply active in her own research.

She earned her BEng with First Class Honours in 2003 and her PhD in 2007, both from NTU, and joined MAE in 2013 after working in the manufacturing of biomedical devices. She was made Associate Professor with tenure in 2018 and full Professor in 2022.

Her work centres on 3D bioprinting and the 3D printing of functional materials. Over her career she has drawn more than SGD$15 million in research grants and published over 180 papers, and she served as Programme Director for the Singapore Centre for 3D Printing and the HP-NTU Digital Manufacturing Corporate Lab.

The recognition followed the work. She was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2022 and 2024, placing her among the most cited scientists in her field, and in 2025 was ranked the world's top scholar in 3D printing over the prior five years by ScholarGPS.

She kept building for the wider field as well. She is founding editor of the International Journal of AI for Materials and Design, and she chairs the Future of Additive Manufacturing conference series, a platform that gathers speakers from more than 30 countries each year.

Over these years, MAE rose into the top ranks of its field worldwide. It climbed to 4th in the 2025 QS World University Rankings by Subject for Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering, holding 5th in 2026, and placed 3rd in the Shanghai Ranking by subject. It remains the youngest school in that QS top ten by several decades.

Rankings of that kind reflect the work of an entire school over many years, its faculty, students and staff alike. Professor Yeong contributed to that shared effort while keeping her own research at the front of her field.

Professor Yeong at an experiment discussion at Singapore Centre of 3D Printing (SC3DP).

Building Global Connections and Future-Ready Education

Professor Yeong's third priority was readying MAE for a future still taking shape.

The clearest example is the Bachelor of Robotics, MAE's first new undergraduate degree in over a decade. It drew on close to three decades of the school's robotics and mechatronics research, and launched alongside three new master's programmes in Aviation, Green Energy Technologies, and Robotics and Intelligent Systems.

She paired the new degrees with the MAE Explorer Programme, sending students to universities and companies overseas to widen their sense of the field beyond campus.

She strengthened the school's teaching bench in step with its ambitions. During her term MAE recruited 21 new faculty members, including 4 Nanyang Assistant Professors, and female faculty representation grew from 6 to 11, an increase by 83%.

That outward instinct reached beyond NTU too. In 2025, she hosted the first Asia Mechanical Engineering Leaders (AMEL) Meeting, gathering heads of mechanical engineering schools across the region to forge new collaborations in research and student initiatives.

It was designed as a recurring platform, carried forward by the region's schools in turn, so the collaborations it began can keep growing beyond any one host.

MAE brought together 7 universities from around the region at the first AMEL Meeting in 2025.

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"It was a real privilege to have served the school as Chair of MAE. The last three years have been a wonderful journey of growth together with team MAE.

We created new potential and new strengths for the school, its students and its faculty. I am grateful for the trust and support given by the university and the MAE community, especially as the first ever female Chair.

Looking forward, I have no doubt that MAE will continue to grow stronger and better in the years to come."

- Professor Yeong Wai Yee

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The Platforms She Leaves Behind

Twenty years ago, a young researcher held a 3D-printed skull for a school magazine photo, drawn to a field so new it was still finding its name. She chose it out of curiosity, excited by where it might lead.

It led further than she could have pictured. She would go on to establish a journal, help launch a robotics degree three decades in the making, and see her school rise to fourth in the world.

WoMAEn keeps growing. The Future of Additive Manufacturing series has its next edition scheduled. The first Robotics cohort is only beginning.

Professor Yeong leaves MAE with real momentum, and a community ready to take what she started further.

Professor Yeong regularly brought the school together to mark MAE's milestones, from its ranking achievements and accolades to its 45th anniversary in 2026, celebrating each one with faMAEly.

 

The School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NTU extends its heartfelt gratitude to Professor Yeong Wai Yee for her visionary leadership and enduring contributions as Chair, and the platforms she leaves behind for the MAE community to carry forward.

About Professor Yeong Wai Yee Professor Yeong Wai Yee is Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. She served as Chair of the school from April 2023 to August 2026, following her term as Associate Chair (Students) at MAE from 2018 to 2023. Professor Yeong Wai Yee received her Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and PhD degrees from NTU in 2003 and 2007, respectively. Prior to joining NTU, she worked in the industry for manufacturing of biomedical devices. She joined the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, NTU in 2013.  She was promoted to an Associate Professor with Tenure in 2018 and subsequently full professor in 2022. She served as the Program Director for 2 research labs in NTU, namely Singapore Centre for 3D Printing since 2014 and HP-NTU Digital Manufacturing Corp Lab since 2018. Professor Yeong’s research work focuses on 3D bioprinting, as well as 3D printing of functional materials. She has attracted more than SGD$15M in research grants and published more than 180 papers. She has been recognized with multiple awards including Top 50 Asia Women Tech Leaders 2024, NRF Investigatorship Class of 2022, Singapore 100 Women in Tech (SG100WIT) 2021 and the Inaugural TCT Woman in 3D Printing Award 2019. She has been listed in the Top 2% Scientists Worldwide in a study from Stanford University since 2021, and was named Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher 2022 & 2024, representing the top 0.1% of most influential scientists who have been most frequently cited by their peers. In 2025, she was ranked #1 in 3D printing (highly ranked scholar - prior 5 years) by ScholarGPS. Professor Yeong is also the founding editor of International Journal of AI for Materials and Design, and the Associate Editor for journals International Journal of Bioprinting, and Virtual & Physical Prototyping. She also serves on international grant panels, such as the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant.

 

By Kendra Kee, NTU MAE Communications