Cutting Edge Research

Professor Lily Kong, President of SMU, has been elected as a Foreign Fellow of the esteemed Geographical Society of China, in recognition of her exceptional contributions to geographical research, particularly in urban transformation and social cohesion within Asia.

SMU Hall buzzed with anticipation as faculty, staff, students and guests gathered to hear Professor Lily Kong delivered her sixth SMU President’s State of the University Address. Professor Kong took a broad view, reflecting on SMU’s progress over the last five years since the launch of the SMU2025 strategic plan in 2020. She shared milestones in the University’s transformative education, cutting-edge research, and commitment to being an engaged city university.

SMU hosted the groundbreaking GRASFI 2024 conference, uniting global experts to drive innovation in sustainable finance, with keynote insights from Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat.

The SMU-DBS Foundation Symposium on Essential Household Needs in Singapore focused on sharing new findings on the Singaporean consensus of what constitutes essential needs, as experienced by groups in society that may be deprived of such essentials and on ways to enhance access for these groups.

To systematically help postgraduate research students, SMU’s College of Graduate Research Studies held the second Singapore Rising Scholars Conference in May 2024, with 60 papers by presenters from 22 institutions around the world.

SMU President Professor Lily Kong has been conferred the highly prestigious Royal Geographical Society Victoria Medal 2024 for conspicuous merit in social and cultural geography and in urban research.

Assistant Professor Andree Hartanto from the SMU School of Social Sciences has been recognised as a “Rising Star” by the Association for Psychological Science (APS). APS presents the Rising Star Award to outstanding APS members in the earliest stages of their research career post-PhD and recognises researchers whose innovative work has already advanced the field and signals great potential for their continued contributions.

SMU Professor David Lo has been honoured as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ACM Fellows represent the most prestigious member grade in ACM, the largest professional organisation for computing, which boasts a global membership of 110,000.

The new SMU Urban Institute (UI) is dedicated to multi- and inter-disciplinary research on cities in Asia and was launched in response to trends that underscore a critical need to prioritise urban research. These include the rapid urbanisation of many Asian cities, and the need for policymakers to face increasingly complex and pressing challenges when it comes to balancing urban growth with the development of resilient and sustainable cities.

As a university, SMU has showed continued commitment to creating meaningful impact by engaging with the community and conducting research with direct societal impact. One of the most important considerations for multi-racial and multi-religious Singapore is to ensure that the diverse population lives harmoniously together – an area which overlaps with SMU Assistant Professor of Psychology Jacinth Tan’s research interests in social status and inequality.