University Awards
Recognising Excellence

University Research Recognition Award

To continue the quest to develop powerful algorithms for solving important classes of large-scale optimisation problems in various domains, especially operations research, machine learning, statistics, and data science. ” Provost Chair Prof TOH Kim Chuan
PhD (Cornell University)
MSc, BSc (NUS)
Departments of Mathematics, and Analytics and Operations
Institute of Operations Research and Analytics, NUS
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Research Interests

  • Development of numerical algorithms and software for convex conic programming, especially for semidefinite programming and its applications
  • Development of numerical algorithms and software for optimisation problems in operations research, machine learning, statistics, and data science
  • Preconditioned iterative methods for large linear systems of equations

Research Achievements

  • Developed a highly efficient and robust general purpose software package for medium-scale semidefinite programming
  • Developed highly powerful algorithms that significantly advanced the frontier for solving large-scale semidefinite programming problems with millions of constraints arising from applications such as combinatorial and polynomial optimisation
  • Developed highly advanced and efficient algorithms for optimisation problems in machine and statistics such as distance weighted discrimination, low-rank matrix completion, sensor network localisation, clustering, and classification

Publication Credits

  • Published more than 90 articles and conference papers in leading journals and prestigious conferences

International Standing

  • Area Editor (convex optimisation), Mathematical Programming Computation (since 2008); Associate Editor, SIAM J. Optimization (since 2007); Subject Editor, Optimization and Engineering (since 2014); and Associate Editor, Mathematical Programming (since 2018)
  • Secretary, SIAM Optimization Activity Group, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) (2014-2016)

Awards and Accolades

  • Provost’s Chair Professorship, NUS (2016-2019)
  • Fellow, SIAM (2018)
  • Farkas Prize, Institute for Operations Research and the Management Services Optimization Society (2017)
  • Outstanding Researcher Award, NUS (2003)
 Honour Roll Recipients