Prof Ong Yew Soon

Professor Ong Yew Soon was Chair, SCSE from February 2016 to July 2018.

Prof Ong concurrently serves as the founding Director of the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Centre (DSAIR); as co-Director of the Singtel-NTU Cognitive & Artificial Intelligence Joint Lab (SCALE@NTU); and as co-Director of the A*Star SIMTECH-NTU Joint Lab on Complex Systems. He was Director, Centre for Computational Intelligence from 2008-2015 and Programme Principal Investigator of the Data Analytics & Complex System Programme in the Rolls-Royce@NTU Corporate Lab from 2013-2016.

Under his stewardship, Prof Ong advanced SCSE’s standing through various initiatives such as the rebranding of the school as “School of Computer Science and Engineering” in Apr 2016; the creation of Innovation Lab and the launch of the flagship degree programme – Bachelor of Science in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in 2018 in collaboration with SPMS, one of the first undergraduate degree in AI to be offered worldwide. Prof Ong’s outstanding contributions to date have propelled NTU to be one of the leading computer science and engineering departments globally and ranked top in AI research; and positioned SCSE as a school of ‘high demand’.

Prof Ong was instrumental in establishing the first SCSE led corporate lab - the S$42.4 million Singtel Cognitive and Artificial Intelligence Lab for Enterprises (SCALE). SCALE aims to accelerate innovation in the fields of AI, advanced data analytics, robotics and smart computing through applications in the areas of public safety, smart urban solutions, transportation, healthcare and manufacturing.

Prof Ong received the Nanyang Education Award twice (University Award in 2016; College of Engineering Award in 2015); the Nanyang Award -Excellence in Teaching in 2008 and was voted Most Popular Lecturer in 2009. For his inspirational teaching, Prof Ong was honoured by 2 of SCSE’s Koh Boon Hwee Scholars Award recipients in 2016.

His current research interests include Artificial & Computational Intelligence spanning Memetic Computation, Evolutionary & Transfer Optimization and Machine Learning. His collaborators include national and international partners - Boeing R&D (USA), Rolls-Royce, Honda Research Institute Europe (Germany), Paypal, NRF, A*STAR, Singapore Technologies Engineering, Singtel and others.

Prof Ong has been named as a Thomson Reuters ‘Highly Cited Researcher’ in 2015 and 2016, and cited amongst the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds. He was conferred as IEEE Fellow in 2018 for his outstanding research in artificial and computational intelligence.