BIOGRAPHY
Professor Tan Eng Chye was appointed President of the National University of Singapore (NUS) on 1 January 2018. He is the University’s 5th president, and the 23rd leader to head Singapore’s oldest higher education institution.
Prof Tan, who attended Raffles Institution (1974 to 1979), obtained his Bachelor in Mathematics (First Class Honours, 1985) at NUS and his PhD (1989) at Yale University. He joined NUS as a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics in 1985, as a Senior Tutor, and has held visiting positions at various leading universities such as the Rutgers University, University of Washington at Seattle, University of California at Berkeley and University of Maryland, USA; Universities of Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan; as well as the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Prof Tan's research interests are in the Representation Theory of Lie Groups and Lie Algebras; and Invariant Theory and Algebraic Combinatorics. He has been invited to speak in numerous top global conferences, and has published more than 20 articles in top internationally-refereed journals and conference proceedings. He has co-authored three books on mathematics, including a well-known graduate text on non-Abelian harmonic analysis.
Prof Tan is a passionate and award-winning educator. As a pioneer architect of the current academic system and interdisciplinary educational approach in NUS, he has seeded many initiatives such as the Special Programme in Science, University Scholars Programme, University Town Residential College Programme, Grade-free Year, and Technology-enhanced Education. He was recognised with the University Teaching Award for Innovative Teaching in 1998, and was President of the Singapore Mathematical Society (2001 to 2005) as well as the Southeast Asian Mathematical Society (2004 to 2005).
Prof Tan currently serves on the boards of the National Research Foundation; National University Health System; NUS High School of Mathematics and Science; Singapore Economic Development Board; and the University of Sharjah. He also sits on the International Advisory Council of the Southern University of Science and Technology in China, and is an advisor with the global nonprofit think tank, The Conference Board. Prof Tan is a member of Singapore’s Future Economy Advisory Panel and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities Steering Committee, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator. He is also the immediate former chair of Universitas 21, a leading global network of 29 research-intensive universities.
For his outstanding contributions to education, as well as his community and leadership roles in Singapore and globally, Prof Tan was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal at Singapore's National Day Awards in 2024. He had earlier received the Public Administration Medal (Gold) in 2014. He was awarded the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, which honours exceptional alumni in the areas of scholarship, teaching, academic administration, and public service, by Yale University in 2018. Prof Tan was conferred an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Southampton in 2018 in recognition of his achievements as “an innovative and exceptional teacher, and then as a distinguished and respected leader in academia”; and an Honorary Doctor of Management from Universiti Malaya in 2023 for his contributions to the university’s journey towards academic and intellectual excellence.
In 2022, Prof Tan was conferred the title of Knight of the French Order of the Legion of Honour (Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur) – the highest French distinction for military and civil accomplishments – for his distinguished contributions in education and research.