Su Guaning (Chinese: 徐冠林) is President Emeritus of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, one of the fastest-growing research-intensive universities in the world.[1]
A President's Scholar and Colombo Plan Scholar, Su graduated with BSc, MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta, California Institute of Technology, and Stanford University respectively. He also holds an MS in Statistics from Stanford University, and attended post-graduate programmes in Business Administration and Management Development at University of Singapore and Harvard Business School respectively.
Su began his career in 1972 as one of the first research engineers at the Ministry of Defence, Singapore. He became Director of the Defence Science Organisation in 1986, building it into Singapore’s largest R&D institute. In 1997, he transformed DSO into a not-for-profit company, DSO National Laboratories[2], and became its first CEO. After serving as Deputy Secretary (Technology) in the Ministry of Defence, Singapore for two years, he set up the Defence Science and Technology Agency and became its founding Chief Executive in 2000 until 2002. He was appointed President of NTU on 1 January 2003.[3]
Su was appointed adjunct associate professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, National University of Singapore, in 1991 and promoted to adjunct professor in 1995, teaching radar systems and signal processing. He also served in the National University of Singapore Business School, teaching management of technology from 1998 to 2000.
Su serves on a number of boards, including the Board of Trustees of Institute Para Limes[4] in the Netherlands, the boards of the Singapore National Research Foundation and Business China, Singapore[5], and the International Advisory Boards of King Abdulaziz University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is also an international reviewer for the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan, a member of Singapore’s Climate Change Network, and a director of Nanyang International Education (Holdings) Limited.[6] Su is an Honorary Fellow and past President of the Institution of Engineers, Singapore[7], and founding Fellow of the ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology.[8]
NTU is a founding member of the Global Alliance of Technological Universities[9] and Su is the founding Chairman. In 2010, he was re-elected Chairman of the Alliance for another two-year term.
He was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 1989, the Public Service Medal in 1997, and the Public Administration Medal (Gold), and Long Service Medal in 1998 by the President of the Republic of Singapore. In 2005, he was conferred the title of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by the French government.