Migrants have become a flashpoint in global politics. But new research by an MIT political scientist, focused on West Germany and Poland after World War II, shows that in the long term, those countries developed stronger states, more prosperous economies, and more entrepreneurship after receiving a large influx of immigrants.

Those findings come from a close examination, at the local level over many decades, of the communities receiving migrants as millions of people relocated westward when Europe’s postwar borders were redrawn.

“I found that places experiencing large-scale displacement [immigration] wound up accumulating state capacity, versus places that did not,” says Volha Charnysh, the Ford Career Development Associate Professor in MIT’s Department of Political Science.

Charnysh’s new book, “Uprooted: How Post-WWII Population Transfers Remade Europe,” published by Cambridge University Press, challenges the notion that migrants have a negative impact on receiving communities.

The time frame of the analysis is important. Much discussion about refugees involves the short-term strains they place on institutions or the backlash they provoke in local communities. Charnysh’s research does reveal tensions in the postwar communities that received large numbers of refugees. But her work, distinctively, also quantifies long-run outcomes, producing a different overall picture.

As Charnysh writes in the book, “Counterintuitively, mass displacement ended up strengthening the state and improving economic performance in the long run.”

Extracting data from history

World War II wrought a colossal amount of death, destruction, and suffering, including the Holocaust, the genocide of about 6 million European Jews. The ensuing peace settlement among the Allied Powers led to large-scale population transfers. Poland saw its borders moved about 125 miles west; it was granted formerly German territory while ceding eastern territory to the Soviet Union. Its new region became 80 percent filled by new migrants, including Poles displaced from the east and voluntary migrants from other parts of the country and from abroad. West Germany received an influx of 12.5 million Germans displaced from Poland and other parts of Europe.

To study the impact of these population transfers, Charnysh used historical records to create four original quantitative datasets at the municipal and county level, while also examining archival documents, memoirs, and newspapers to better understand the texture of the time. The assignment of refugees to specific communities within Poland and West Germany amounted to a kind of historical natural experiment, allowing her to compare how the size and regional composition of the migrant population affected otherwise similar areas.

Additionally, studying forced displacement — as opposed to the movement of a self-selected group of immigrants — meant Charnysh could rigorously examine the scaled-up effects of mass migration.

“It has been an opportunity to study in a more robust way the consequences of displacement,” Charnysh says.

The Holocaust, followed by the redrawing of borders, expulsions, and mass relocations, appeared to increase the homogeneity of the populations within them: In 1931 Poland consisted of about one-third ethnic minorities, whereas after the war it became almost ethnically uniform. But one insight of Charnysh’s research is that shared ethnic or national identification does not guarantee social acceptance for migrants.

“Even if you just rearrange ethnically homogenous populations, new cleavages emerge,” Charnysh says. “People will not necessarily see others as being the same. Those who are displaced have suffered together, have a particular status in their new place, and realize their commonalities. For the native population, migrants’ arrival increased competition for jobs, housing, and state resources, so shared identities likewise emerged, and this ethnic homogeneity didn’t automatically translate into more harmonious relations.”

Yet, West Germany and Poland did assimilate these groups of immgrants into their countries. In both places, state capacity grew in the decades after the war, with the countries becoming better able to administer resources for their populations.

“The very problem, that migration and diversity can create conflict, can also create the demand for more state presence and, in cases where states are willing and able to step in, allow for the accumulation of greater state capacity over time,” Charnysh says.

State investment in migrant-receiving localities paid off. By the 1980s in West Germany, areas with greater postwar migration had higher levels of education, with more business enterprises being founded. That economic pattern emerged in Poland after it switched to a market economy in the 1990s.

Needed: Property rights and liberties

In “Uprooted,” Charnysh also discusses the conditions in which the example of West Germany and Poland may apply to other countries. For one thing, the phenomenon of migrants bolstering the economy is likeliest to occur where states offer what the scholars Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson of MIT and James Robinson of the University of Chicago have called “inclusive institutions,” such as property rights, additional liberties, and a commitment to the rule of law. Poland, while increasing its state capacity during the Cold War, did not realize the economic benefits of migration until the Cold War ended and it changed to a more democratic government.

Additionally, Charnysh observes, West Germany and Poland were granting citizenship to the migrants they received, making it easier for those migrants to assimilate and make demands on the state. “My complete account probably applies best to cases where migrants receive full citizenship rights,” she acknowledges.

“Uprooted” has earned praise from leading scholars. David Stasavage, dean for the social sciences and a professor of politics at New York University, has called the book a “pathbreaking study” that “upends what we thought we knew about the interaction between social cohesion and state capacity.” Charnysh’s research, he adds, “shows convincingly that areas with more diverse populations after the transfers saw greater improvements in state capacity and economic performance. This is a major addition to scholarship.”

Today there may be about 100 million displaced people around the world, including perhaps 14 million Ukrainians uprooted by war. Absorbing refugees may always be a matter of political contention. But as “Uprooted” shows, countries may realize benefits from it if they take a long-term perspective.

“When states treat refugees as temporary, they don’t provide opportunities for them to contribute and assimilate,” Charnysh says. “It’s not that I don’t think cultural differences matter to people, but it’s not as big a factor as state policies.” 

Gastric balloons — silicone balloons filled with air or saline and placed in the stomach — can help people lose weight by making them feel too full to overeat. However, this effect eventually can wear off as the stomach becomes used to the sensation of fullness.

To overcome that limitation, MIT engineers have designed a new type of gastric balloon that can be inflated and deflated as needed. In an animal study, they showed that inflating the balloon before a meal caused the animals to reduce their food intake by 60 percent.

This type of intervention could offer an alternative for people who don’t want to undergo more invasive treatments such as gastric bypass surgery, or people who don’t respond well to weight-loss drugs, the researchers say.

“The basic concept is we can have this balloon that is dynamic, so it would be inflated right before a meal and then you wouldn’t feel hungry. Then it would be deflated in between meals,” says Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the senior author of the study.

Neil Zixun Jia, who received a PhD from MIT in 2023, is the lead author of the paper, which appears today in the journal Device.

An inflatable balloon

Gastric balloons filled with saline are currently approved for use in the United States. These balloons stimulate a sense of fullness in the stomach, and studies have shown that they work well, but the benefits are often temporary.

“Gastric balloons do work initially. Historically, what has been seen is that the balloon is associated with weight loss. But then in general, the weight gain resumes the same trajectory,” Traverso says. “What we reasoned was perhaps if we had a system that simulates that fullness in a transient way, meaning right before a meal, that could be a way of inducing weight loss.”

To achieve a longer-lasting effect in patients, the researchers set out to design a device that could expand and contract on demand. They created two prototypes: One is a traditional balloon that inflates and deflates, and the other is a mechanical device with four arms that expand outward, pushing out an elastic polymer shell that presses on the stomach wall.

In animal tests, the researchers found that the mechanical-arm device could effectively expand to fill the stomach, but they ended up deciding to pursue the balloon option instead.

“Our sense was that the balloon probably distributed the force better, and down the line, if you have balloon that is applying the pressure, that is probably a safer approach in the long run,” Traverso says.

The researchers’ new balloon is similar to a traditional gastric balloon, but it is inserted into the stomach through an incision in the abdominal wall. The balloon is connected to an external controller that can be attached to the skin and contains a pump that inflates and deflates the balloon when needed. Inserting this device would be similar to the procedure used to place a feeding tube into a patient’s stomach, which is commonly done for people who are unable to eat or drink.

“If people, for example, are unable to swallow, they receive food through a tube like this. We know that we can keep tubes in for years, so there is already precedent for other systems that can stay in the body for a very long time. That gives us some confidence in the longer-term compatibility of this system,” Traverso says.

Reduced food intake

In tests in animals, the researchers found that inflating the balloon before meals led to a 60 percent reduction in the amount of food consumed. These studies were done over the course of a month, but the researchers now plan to do longer-term studies to see if this reduction leads to weight loss.

“The deployment for traditional gastric balloons is usually six months, if not more, and only then you will see good amount of weight loss. We will have to evaluate our device in a similar or longer time span to prove it really works better,” Jia says.

If developed for use in humans, the new gastric balloon could offer an alternative to existing obesity treatments. Other treatments for obesity include gastric bypass surgery, “stomach stapling” (a surgical procedure in which the stomach capacity is reduced), and drugs including GLP-1 receptor agonists such as semaglutide.

The gastric balloon could be an option for patients who are not good candidates for surgery or don’t respond well to weight-loss drugs, Traverso says.

“For certain patients who are higher-risk, who cannot undergo surgery, or did not tolerate the medication or had some other contraindication, there are limited options,” he says. “Traditional gastric balloons are still being used, but they come with a caveat that eventually the weight loss can plateau, so this is a way of trying to address that fundamental limitation.”

The research was funded by MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Karl van Tassel Career Development Professorship, the Whitaker Health Sciences Fund Fellowship, the T.S. Lin Fellowship, the MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, and the Boston University Yawkey Funded Internship Program. 

Professor Prakash Kumar, from the Department of Biological Sciences at the NUS Faculty of Science, was honoured with the Distinguished Scientist Award at the 2024 World Congress on In Vitro Biology Meeting held in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States. This award recognises outstanding scientists who have made significant contributions to the field of in vitro biology and in the development of novel technologies that have advanced in vitro biology.

A prominent figure in plant biotechnology, Prof Prakash’s primary research focuses on the physiological and molecular mechanisms of vegetative shoot development and plant responses to abiotic stresses. He has also conducted research on biomimetic membranes as an energy-saving alternative to traditional water purification methods. 

Prof Prakash believes that it is important to translate basic science research into practice. He is the founding Director of the Research Centre on Sustainable Urban Farming at NUS, which conducts research to facilitate tripling the percentage of locally grown food in Singapore. The multidisciplinary approach envisioned by the Centre focuses on optimising in vitro techniques for leafy green vegetables to address the challenges of food self-sufficiency, especially in land-scarce and densely-populated urban environments.

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The University of Melbournes Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute) have launched the Lionel Gell Foundation Art in Science Initiative, an innovative residency program binding art and science.

The MIT Global Seed Funds (GSF) program fosters global research collaborations with MIT faculty and their peers abroad — creating partnerships that tackle complex global issues, from climate change to health-care challenges and beyond. Administered by the MIT Center for International Studies (CIS), the GSF program has awarded more than $26 million to over 1,200 faculty research projects since its inception in 2008. Through its unique funding structure — comprising a general fund for unrestricted geographical use and several specific funds within individual countries, regions, and universities — GSF supports a wide range of projects. The current call for proposals from MIT faculty and researchers with principal investigator status is open until Dec. 10. 

CIS recently sat down with faculty recipients Josephine Carstensen and David McGee to discuss the value and impact GSF added to their research. Carstensen, the Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, generates computational designs for large-scale structures with the intent of designing novel low-carbon solutions. McGee, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), reconstructs the patterns, pace, and magnitudes of past hydro-climate changes.

Q: How did the Global Seed Funds program connect you with global partnerships related to your research?

Carstensen: One of the projects my lab is working on is to unlock the potential of complex cast-glass structures. Through our GSF partnership with researchers at TUDelft (Netherlands), my group was able to leverage our expertise in generative design algorithms alongside the TUDelft team, who are experts in the physical casting and fabrication of glass structures. Our initial connection to TUDelft was actually through one of my graduate students who was at a conference and met TUDelft researchers. He was inspired by their work and felt there could be synergy between our labs. The question then became: How do we connect with TUDelft? And that was what led us to the Global Seed Funds program. 

McGee: Our research is based in fieldwork conducted in partnership with experts who have a rich understanding of local environments. These locations range from lake basins in Chile and Argentina to caves in northern Mexico, Vietnam, and Madagascar. GSF has been invaluable for helping foster partnerships with collaborators and universities in these different locations, enabling the pilot work and relationship-building necessary to establish longer-term, externally funded projects.

Q: Tell us more about your GSF-funded work.

Carstensen: In my research group at MIT, we live mainly in a computational regime, and we do very little proof-of-concept testing. To that point, we do not even have the facilities nor experience to physically build large-scale structures, or even specialized structures. GSF has enabled us to connect with the researchers at TUDelft who do much more experimental testing than we do. Being able to work with the experts at TUDelft within their physical realm provided valuable insights into their way of approaching problems. And, likewise, the researchers at TUDelft benefited from our expertise. It has been fruitful in ways we couldn’t have imagined within our lab at MIT.

McGee: The collaborative work supported by the GSF has focused on reconstructing how past climate changes impacted rainfall patterns around the world, using natural archives like lake sediments and cave formations. One particularly successful project has been our work in caves in northeastern Mexico, which has been conducted in partnership with researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and a local caving group. This project has involved several MIT undergraduate and graduate students, sponsored a research symposium in Mexico City, and helped us obtain funding from the National Science Foundation for a longer-term project.

Q: You both mentioned the involvement of your graduate students. How exactly has the GSF augmented the research experience of your students?

Carstensen: The collaboration has especially benefited the graduate students from both the MIT and TUDelft teams. The opportunity presented through this project to engage in research at an international peer institution has been extremely beneficial for their academic growth and maturity. It has facilitated training in new and complementary technical areas that they would not have had otherwise and allowed them to engage with leading world experts. An example of this aspect of the project's success is that the collaboration has inspired one of my graduate students to actively pursue postdoc opportunities in Europe (including at TU Delft) after his graduation.

McGee: MIT students have traveled to caves in northeastern Mexico and to lake basins in northern Chile to conduct fieldwork and build connections with local collaborators. Samples enabled by GSF-supported projects became the focus of two graduate students’ PhD theses, two EAPS undergraduate senior theses, and multiple UROP [Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program] projects.

Q: Were there any unexpected benefits to the work funded by GSF?

Carstensen: The success of this project would not have been possible without this specific international collaboration. Both the Delft and MIT teams bring highly different essential expertise that has been necessary for the successful project outcome. It allowed both the Delft and MIT teams to gain an in-depth understanding of the expertise areas and resources of the other collaborators. Both teams have been deeply inspired. This partnership has fueled conversations about potential future projects and provided multiple outcomes, including a plan to publish two journal papers on the project outcome. The first invited publication is being finalized now.

McGee: GSF’s focus on reciprocal exchange has enabled external collaborators to spend time at MIT, sharing their work and exchanging ideas. Other funding is often focused on sending MIT researchers and students out, but GSF has helped us bring collaborators here, making the relationship more equal. A GSF-supported visit by Argentinian researchers last year made it possible for them to interact not just with my group, but with students and faculty across EAPS.

The deep neural network models that power today’s most demanding machine-learning applications have grown so large and complex that they are pushing the limits of traditional electronic computing hardware.

Photonic hardware, which can perform machine-learning computations with light, offers a faster and more energy-efficient alternative. However, there are some types of neural network computations that a photonic device can’t perform, requiring the use of off-chip electronics or other techniques that hamper speed and efficiency.

Building on a decade of research, scientists from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new photonic chip that overcomes these roadblocks. They demonstrated a fully integrated photonic processor that can perform all the key computations of a deep neural network optically on the chip.

The optical device was able to complete the key computations for a machine-learning classification task in less than half a nanosecond while achieving more than 92 percent accuracy — performance that is on par with traditional hardware.

The chip, composed of interconnected modules that form an optical neural network, is fabricated using commercial foundry processes, which could enable the scaling of the technology and its integration into electronics.

In the long run, the photonic processor could lead to faster and more energy-efficient deep learning for computationally demanding applications like lidar, scientific research in astronomy and particle physics, or high-speed telecommunications.

“There are a lot of cases where how well the model performs isn’t the only thing that matters, but also how fast you can get an answer. Now that we have an end-to-end system that can run a neural network in optics, at a nanosecond time scale, we can start thinking at a higher level about applications and algorithms,” says Saumil Bandyopadhyay ’17, MEng ’18, PhD ’23, a visiting scientist in the Quantum Photonics and AI Group within the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) and a postdoc at NTT Research, Inc., who is the lead author of a paper on the new chip.

Bandyopadhyay is joined on the paper by Alexander Sludds ’18, MEng ’19, PhD ’23; Nicholas Harris PhD ’17; Darius Bunandar PhD ’19; Stefan Krastanov, a former RLE research scientist who is now an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Ryan Hamerly, a visiting scientist at RLE and senior scientist at NTT Research; Matthew Streshinsky, a former silicon photonics lead at Nokia who is now co-founder and CEO of Enosemi; Michael Hochberg, president of Periplous, LLC; and Dirk Englund, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, principal investigator of the Quantum Photonics and Artificial Intelligence Group and of RLE, and senior author of the paper. The research appears today in Nature Photonics.

Machine learning with light

Deep neural networks are composed of many interconnected layers of nodes, or neurons, that operate on input data to produce an output. One key operation in a deep neural network involves the use of linear algebra to perform matrix multiplication, which transforms data as it is passed from layer to layer.

But in addition to these linear operations, deep neural networks perform nonlinear operations that help the model learn more intricate patterns. Nonlinear operations, like activation functions, give deep neural networks the power to solve complex problems.

In 2017, Englund’s group, along with researchers in the lab of Marin Soljačić, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, demonstrated an optical neural network on a single photonic chip that could perform matrix multiplication with light.

But at the time, the device couldn’t perform nonlinear operations on the chip. Optical data had to be converted into electrical signals and sent to a digital processor to perform nonlinear operations.

“Nonlinearity in optics is quite challenging because photons don’t interact with each other very easily. That makes it very power consuming to trigger optical nonlinearities, so it becomes challenging to build a system that can do it in a scalable way,” Bandyopadhyay explains.

They overcame that challenge by designing devices called nonlinear optical function units (NOFUs), which combine electronics and optics to implement nonlinear operations on the chip.

The researchers built an optical deep neural network on a photonic chip using three layers of devices that perform linear and nonlinear operations.

A fully-integrated network

At the outset, their system encodes the parameters of a deep neural network into light. Then, an array of programmable beamsplitters, which was demonstrated in the 2017 paper, performs matrix multiplication on those inputs.

The data then pass to programmable NOFUs, which implement nonlinear functions by siphoning off a small amount of light to photodiodes that convert optical signals to electric current. This process, which eliminates the need for an external amplifier, consumes very little energy.

“We stay in the optical domain the whole time, until the end when we want to read out the answer. This enables us to achieve ultra-low latency,” Bandyopadhyay says.

Achieving such low latency enabled them to efficiently train a deep neural network on the chip, a process known as in situ training that typically consumes a huge amount of energy in digital hardware.

“This is especially useful for systems where you are doing in-domain processing of optical signals, like navigation or telecommunications, but also in systems that you want to learn in real time,” he says.

The photonic system achieved more than 96 percent accuracy during training tests and more than 92 percent accuracy during inference, which is comparable to traditional hardware. In addition, the chip performs key computations in less than half a nanosecond.     

“This work demonstrates that computing — at its essence, the mapping of inputs to outputs — can be compiled onto new architectures of linear and nonlinear physics that enable a fundamentally different scaling law of computation versus effort needed,” says Englund.

The entire circuit was fabricated using the same infrastructure and foundry processes that produce CMOS computer chips. This could enable the chip to be manufactured at scale, using tried-and-true techniques that introduce very little error into the fabrication process.

Scaling up their device and integrating it with real-world electronics like cameras or telecommunications systems will be a major focus of future work, Bandyopadhyay says. In addition, the researchers want to explore algorithms that can leverage the advantages of optics to train systems faster and with better energy efficiency.

This research was funded, in part, by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and NTT Research.

By Dr Lance Gore Liangping, Senior Research Fellow from the East Asian Institute at NUS

• Lianhe Zaobao, 29 November 2024, Opinion, p20

By Dr Mathew Mathews, Head of the Social Lab and Principal Research Fellow and Ms Sophy Tio, Research Assoc, both from the Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS

• The Straits Times, 29 November 2024, Opinion, pB5

• Suria News Online, 28 November 2024

• 8world Online, 28 November 2024  
• Lianhe Zaobao, 29 November 2024, Business, p24

By Mr Carl Skadian, Senior Associate Director from the Middle East Institute at NUS

• CNA Online, 27 November 2024

By Prof Simon Chesterman, NUS Vice Provost (Educational Innovation) and Dean of NUS College, and Assoc Prof Loy Hui Chieh, from the Dept of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at NUS, and Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) at NUS College

• The Straits Times, 28 November 2024, Opinion, pB3

• The Straits Times, 29 November 2024, Singapore, pA30

• Lianhe Zaobao Online, 28 November 2024
• 8world Online, 28 November 2024

• Lianhe Zaobao, 28 November 2024, Singapore, p12

• The Business Times, 28 November 2024, p12
• Berita Harian, 28 November 2024, p5

About 100 alumni, students, and staff attended a panel discussion which brought together distinguished thought leaders to explore the pressing issues facing Singapore as part of the Alumni Reunion @BTC event held on 26 October 2024.

The event began with an opening address by NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye (Science ‘85) that reflected on the nostalgic significance of NUS’ Bukit Timah Campus for generations of graduates, resonating with the shared history and deep alumni connections to the iconic grounds. Looking ahead, Prof Tan highlighted the upcoming celebration of the University’s 120th anniversary, which will be marked by various key events, including a fun NUS120 charity walk around campus in February 2025.

The reflective theme of the event set the tone for the panel discussion that followed. Titled “How Can Singapore Navigate the Continuing Storms of Geopolitical Rivalry?”, it provided insights into how Singapore can continue to navigate the complexities of a polarised world while safeguarding its national interests.

Moderated by Professor Tan Tai Yong (Arts & Social Sciences ‘86, MA ‘89), Chairman of the NUS Institute of South Asian Studies and President of the Singapore University of Social Sciences, the panel featured Dr Selina Ho (Arts & Social Sciences ‘94), Assistant Professor in International Affairs and Co-Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP); Professor Khong Yuen Foong, Li Ka Shing Professor in Political Science and Co-Director of CAG; Mr Kishore Mahbubani (Arts & Social Sciences ‘71), Distinguished Fellow, Asia Research Institute; and Professor Danny Quah, Dean and Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics at LKYSPP.

Adapting to a new global order

Dr Ho highlighted the challenges Singapore faces due to rising tensions over Taiwan and the broader US-China rivalry. She emphasised that Singapore is in a better position than most to navigate these challenges, as it has been diplomatically nimble and has taken a balanced approach to both sides. Dr Ho also stressed the importance of continuing to diversify our relationships with major stakeholders, engaging with multiple global players, and building national resilience through Total Defence.

Meanwhile, Mr Mahbubani noted that Singapore’s success has been driven by strong leadership and a once-functional Western-led world order that facilitated global trade. However, he cautioned that challenges lie in navigating a shift to a more dysfunctional state of affairs internationally, which could impact the country’s ability to thrive.

Strengthening cooperation

Prof Quah emphasised the importance of bolstering Singapore’s economic resilience and strengthening security measures to protect the nation in an uncertain global environment. He also called for greater multilateralism as a way forward.

Participant Mr Chim Teng Lee (Engineering ’90) found the session insightful. Despite geopolitical tensions, he suggested that NUS can foster collaboration and bridge differences by bringing together local and overseas alumni to share their expertise. By doing so, he believes Singapore can promote better relations and explore new opportunities for cooperation between ASEAN countries, to strengthen regional ties and create mutual benefit.

Another participant, Ms Chew Tai Wen (Arts & Social Sciences ’20), enjoyed the personal anecdotes that were shared by the panellists. Her key takeaway was that while Singapore must brace for uncertainties ahead, she has confidence in the country’s leaders to navigate these challenges effectively. 

By NUS Office of Alumni Relations

In conjunction with Clean & Green Singapore (CGS) Day 2024 held on 3 November 2024 at NUS University Town (UTown), NUS’ University Campus Infrastructure (UCI) organised the inaugural Iceberg Series comprising two panel discussions to engage the NUS community on conversations relating to environmental sustainability.

In a spirit akin to uncovering an iceberg’s submerged mass, the Iceberg Series brought together researchers, experts and policymakers to dive deep into how plastic recyclables at the end of their life cycle can be responsibly managed while maximising their environmental sustainability as part of climate action; and how campus greening on Kent Ridge campus has contributed to the global fight against climate change.

Closing the plastic loop on responsible waste management

Speaking on the panel “Where do our plastic recyclables end up? Closing the plastic waste loop”, Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Dr Amy Khor shared about Singapore’s strategy for tackling plastic waste through the nation’s Zero Waste Masterplan. These included regulatory measures such as the Beverage Container Return Scheme, which is designed to increase the recycling of beverage containers and reduce waste disposed at incineration plants. She emphasised, however, that government regulation is not the only solution to improving recycling and must instead be supported with public education and industry innovation.

The panel featured other speakers including Dr Jovan Tan, Lecturer at the NUS College of Design and Engineering (CDE); Mr Loo Deliang, Head (Sustainability Strategy Unit) at UCI; Dr Adrian Ang, Director (Group Sustainability & New Business) at Chye Thiam Maintenance; and Gracia Goh, Co-President of NUS Students’ Association for Visions of the Earth (SAVE).

Recognising the importance of traceability in waste management, the NUS Zero Waste Taskforce facilitated a student-driven initiative to place trackers in NUS’ plastic containers to track their journey. It was discovered that recyclables were sent to Malaysia and likely processed in facilities with inadequate pollution controls.

Highlighting the negative impact of inadequate end-of-life management of recyclables, Mr Loo pointed out that its implications extend beyond geographical boundaries, making it essential to tackle the issue from the root. He shared that NUS is exploring options to reduce packaging materials upstream and is sending clean PET-1 (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles, which are commonly used in the production of beverage containers, to an established processing facility in Johor, Malaysia, to be turned into recycled PET resins, closing the plastic waste loop.

To encourage youths to take action, Gracia who is a Year 4 undergraduate from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, suggested that youths can contribute by sparking conversations to rally actions or share their views to inform the regulatory environment.

Adopting an evidence-based approach to campus greening

During the panel on “Campus as a real-world living laboratory to tackle climate change”, NUS Vice-President of Campus Infrastructure Mr Koh Yan Leng, who also heads UCI, highlighted that the University is one of the first in Singapore to intensify campus greening efforts to build climate-resilience.

Taking an evidence-based approach, 49 weather stations and microclimate sensors have been installed across the Kent Ridge campus since March 2024 – the densest network in a local campus, to track how the University’s greening strategies have impacted the microclimate over time.

Mr Koh was joined by other speakers including Mr Steve Teo, Climate and Ecosystem Scientist at the NUS Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions; Dr Marcel Ignatius, Senior Research Fellow at CDE; and Nadya Heryanto, Co-President of NUS SAVE. The panel discussion was moderated by Dr Sean Shin, Senior Lecturer of Accounting at NUS Business School.

Dr Ignatius, the co-principal investigator of the CoolNUS-BEAM initiative, shared that tree planting efforts on campus have resulted in a significant increase in tree canopy coverage from 36 per cent in 2019 to 60 per cent in 2024. As temperatures continue to rise with climate change, having more than half the campus grounds covered in trees will help cool the environment through shade and evapotranspiration. Mr Teo noted the positive impact of strategic urban reforestation on campus for health and well-being, yielding restorative effects that can help alleviate stress and encourage community interactions.

Nadya, a Year 3 undergraduate from NUS Business School, reflected on how tree-planting ignited in her, a deeper appreciation of nature and taking a stake in protecting the environment. “Once you realise how hard it is to plant a tree, you will think harder about the implications of ‘killing’ one (tree).”

Milestone planting of the 50,000th tree on campus

CGS Day 2024 also saw the planting of the 50,000th tree on campus. This marked the halfway point of the University’s pledge to plant 100,000 trees by 2030, in support of the National Parks Board’s OneMillionTrees movement. More than 100 NUS staff and students joined hands to plant a total of 50 trees at the event.

Since 2015, the University has been organising annual tree planting activities to augment its commitment to build a Campus in a Tropical Rainforest – one of the goals outlined in NUS’ Campus Sustainability Roadmap 2030.

Year 3 Life Science undergraduate Ahmad Musa was one of the students who participated in this meaningful cause. The avid tree planter said, “I do enjoy tree planting because it helps to restore our native forest and bring back the rich biodiversity that was lost many years ago. It is an investment for current and future generations to enjoy. Ultimately, I hope that through greening (the) campus, we can play a small yet important role in addressing and mitigating the effects of climate change one tree at a time.”

By University Campus Infrastructure

By Emeritus Prof Tommy Koh from the Faculty of Law and Special Adviser to the Institute of Policy Studies at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS, and Mr Tan Suee Chieh, past CEO of NTUC Income and past Group CEO of NTUC Enterprise

• The Straits Times, 27 November 2024, Opinion, pB3

• 8world Online, 26 November 2024
• The Business Times, 27 November 2024, p13

By Mr Muhammad Iylia Kamsani, a master’s student from the Dept of Malay Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at NUS

• Berita Harian, 25 November 2024, p11

By Mr Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow from the Asia Research Institute at NUS

• Lianhe Zaobao, 25 November 2024, Opinion, p15

By Dr Azhar Ibrahim Alwee, a Senior Lecturer at the Dept of Malay Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at NUS

•  Suria News Online, 22 November 2024

Jane Hansen AO has been officially installed as the University of Melbournes 23rd Chancellor by the Governor of Victoria, Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Margaret Gardner AC.

More than 50,000 Indian students from secondary schools in Andhra Pradesh are undertaking the University of Melbournes Schools Engagement Program.

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the world’s digital infrastructure company®, and the Centre for Energy Research & Technology (CERT) under the National University of Singapore’s College of Design and Engineering (NUS CDE) today announced its plan to set up a Co-Innovation Facility (CIF) in Singapore to accelerate the testing and development of innovative solutions focused on low-carbon energy, high-efficiency cooling, circularity, and energy efficiency optimisation for data centres. Accelerating these innovations will shape the future of digital infrastructure and services in Singapore and other tropical locations, as well as address sustainability goals. 

Singapore’s digital economy has grown at a compound annual growth rate of close to 13% since 2017, contributing 17.3% to its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022. Furthermore, according to the recent 2024 National Budget, Singapore is strengthening its position as a global business and innovation hub by investing more than $740 million into Artificial Intelligence (AI) over the next five years. As digital demands accelerate, data centres have become the foundation of today’s digital economy. To support digital growth more sustainably, data centres need to explore new ways to reduce energy consumption and implement energy efficiency solutions to cope with increased workloads and processing requirements. 

To be built inside Equinix’s upcoming SG6 International Business ExchangeTM (IBX®) data centre, the CIF aligns with Equinix’s Data Centre of the Future Initiative toward building cleaner, more efficient data centres around the world. This CIF will be an open research hub for leading global technology innovators, data centre technology partners, academia, and customers to co-develop and trial core and edge technologies that deliver reliability, energy efficiency, and cost efficiency. 

With an initial investment of US$4 million from Equinix, the CIF will serve as an incubator to trial innovations such as enabling the integration of clean and renewable energy sources and alternative power generation, with the aim of assessing their ability to operate at scale. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will also be utilised by the facility along with other advancements, such as liquid cooling, which is becoming more vital as AI makes data processing more compute intensive. The facility will also trial Cognitive Digital Twin (CDT) capabilities of predictive maintenance and upgrades to address challenges faced by current data centre models. 

Yee May Leong, Managing Director, Singapore, Equinix, said: “The effects of climate change are being felt around the world, and it is becoming increasingly urgent to embed best practices in every aspect of our operations. By replicating our successful Co-Innovation Facility from Ashburn and expanding our collaborative efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, we are reaching a significant milestone in advancing our "Future First" sustainability agenda. It will accelerate the development of cutting-edge technologies and apply real-world solutions to help reduce the carbon footprint of the growing number of data centres worldwide.” 

Professor Lee Poh Seng, Director, Centre for Energy Research & Technology, NUS College of Design and Engineering, said, “The establishment of the Co-Innovation Facility highlights our commitment to forging impactful industry partnerships that translate groundbreaking research into practical applications. Collaborating with Equinix enables us to leverage our expertise in energy innovation and sustainability to address critical challenges faced by data centres in tropical climates. Together, we aim to redefine benchmarks for operational efficiency and sustainability in digital infrastructure, aligning with Singapore's ambitions for sustainable development and technological leadership. This partnership is a powerful step forward in shaping a future where cutting-edge innovation meets environmental responsibility.” 

Key Highlights: 

• To be opened in Q1 2027, the CIF will trial sustainable innovations for data centres, such as: 
  • Alternative power solutions: Alternative power generation solutions such as fuel cells and battery storage, can provide low-carbon power solutions for data centres, serving as bi-directional grid interfaces and on-site prime and/or backup solutions. 
  • Direct current power distribution system: An electrical power distribution architecture known as medium voltage AC to low-voltage DC (MVAC-LVDC), facilitates the seamless integration of battery energy storage system (BESS), solar photovoltaics (PV) and other renewable energy sources (RES) coupled to the data centre power distribution network, with the potential to enhance grid-side power quality, efficiency, and power density for data centres. 
  • Liquid cooling: This advanced cooling method reduces energy consumption and noise while optimising space. It also increases the potential for waste heat reuse, supporting circular data centre models. 
  • Digital twin capabilities: Data-driven model and machine learning will be utilised to enable predictive maintenance and upgrades. 
• Equinix and NUS have long supported Singapore’s sustainability agenda and implemented various initiatives to support the growth of sustainable development in the country, including scholarship opportunities in nature-based climate solutions for students at NUS.
• In 2022, Equinix together with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and CERT, both under NUS CDE, collaborated to explore hydrogen-based green fuel technologies for mission-critical data centre infrastructure. The study compared PEM fuel cells and fuel-flexible linear generators, highlighting their efficiency and potential as backup power solutions, particularly in tropical climates. The results were released in 2023.
• Equinix operates 268 data centres across 73 metros, providing digital infrastructure for more than 10,000 of the world’s leading businesses. Since 2021, Equinix has been driving toward an approved near-term science-based target (SBT) for emissions reduction by 2030.

A collaborative team of researchers led by Penn Vet’s Ronald N. Harty and Jingjing Liang show how the Hippo signaling pathway intersects with the virus at multiple stages of the viral life cycle.

Tight deadlines and unexpected curveballs are part and parcel of case competitions, contributing to a thrilling learning experience for the intrepid participants. Two NUS Business School teams fielded by the NUS Case Consulting Group (CCG) at recent competitions share with NUS News how they persevered through challenges to take home the top and second runner-up prizes at their respective competitions last month.

Transforming a bank into a sustainability leader

A team of Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) students did NUS proud at the Thammasat Undergraduate Business Challenge (TUBC) 2024, with the team emerging champions and their team leader Anastasia Goh Hui Yuan, a Year 3 student, taking home the Best Speaker Award.

This was the first international case competition for the other three members of the team – Chia Jeng Yee, a Year 4 student majoring in Computer Science and Business Administration; third-year BBA student Jocelyn Kelly, and second-year BBA student Thng Kai Liang Darren – making the win even more special.

A case competition with 27 years of history, TUBC is organised by undergraduate students in Thammasat University’s BBA international programme, who invite representatives from leading international business schools to compete.

This year, 20 teams from five Thai universities and 15 international business schools from Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific were set the challenge of helping major Thai financial institution Krungsri Bank to reduce its Scope 3 emissions (emissions produced by indirect sources in a company’s value chains) and recommending how the bank could position itself as a regional leader in sustainability.

The NUS team had 28 hours to analyse the situation, formulate their recommendations, and package their solution in a cohesive, concise, and presentable format. Their final proposals laid out a plan for Krungsri to lead Asean’s transition to net zero by using AI-driven tools to assess their corporate clients’ transition readiness; upskilling their relationship managers on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics; and offering transition financing products.

Said Jocelyn: “Our team worked around the clock, running on little rest as we navigated ESG, a topic that was new territory for many of us. But ultimately, the effort was worth it; ESG is such a critical and timely topic and being able to propose solutions that could drive real impact made the experience incredibly rewarding.”

A key to their success was the extensive preparation and training they underwent before the competition. They thoroughly researched Krungsri Bank and the Thai market and used other cases to practise researching, developing, and presenting solutions within 24 hours. CCG seniors and faculty advisor Mr Maurice Tan, along with invited faculty and alumni, gave them constructive feedback and mentorship.

Mr Tan, an adjunct senior lecturer of marketing at the Business School, noted that the team performed well under pressure, demonstrating their preparedness and poise and engaging with the judges confidently. “As faculty team advisors, we entrusted our students to shine, and they exceeded expectations,” he said.

The team also benefitted from the unique mix of skills and backgrounds among its members, ranging from tech and ESG to finance and consulting. Each student drew on fundamental skills picked up in their Business School courses on topics like accounting, business law, and marketing, and exercised their public speaking and presentation skills to confidently articulate their message and recommendations to a large audience.

“Beyond the incredible experiences themselves, it was truly special to share these moments with participants from other teams, creating friendships and memories that we’ll always remember fondly,” Jeng Yee concluded.

Earning a hard-fought win in debut performance

Achieving a placement finish at their very first case competition was an achievement in itself for a team of four NUS students at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology International Case Competition (HKICC), but their second runner-up prize was especially sweet because of the battles they fought to earn it.

HKICC is a premier business case competition organised by HKUST Business School since 2003, attracting student teams from renowned business schools such as Copenhagen Business School and University of California, Berkeley. The 2024 edition hosted 16 teams, who worked on business challenges faced by the helpdesk department of HSBC Bank.

Kim Eunwoo, a Year 4 Accounting student, shared that her team was excited about the intellectual challenge of their first case competition outing, as such competitions are fast-paced and competitive with a steep learning curve while offering opportunities to interact with talented students from around the world.

“The fact that it was our first experience for all of us helped us to bond, and it also made us discuss our solutions and strategic direction more thoroughly, to be extra certain and confident in what we're doing,” she said.

Besides Eunwoo, the team comprised Year 3 BBA student Griffith Goh and Year 4 BBA students Xinxia Lu and Beverly Wan. Through training and practising together in the CCG club, they learnt to strategise around one another’s strengths and weaknesses. They also received mentorship from Associate Professor Ang Swee Hoon, who shared her extensive case competition experience and guided them to shape their presentation styles individually and as a team.

At the competition, the team was immediately faced with an unexpected complication when one member fell severely ill. However, the entire team would be disqualified if they did not all compete in every round, so the other team members rallied to divide up the work and keep going.

They started strong, topping their division in the first round that involved a five-hour mini case to propose employee retention strategies. But the second round involved a more complex challenge – a 24-hour case requiring them to streamline the helpdesk operations to improve efficiency and service quality for the entire business – and their solution for an automated call routing engine that would also use AI to generate solutions and guidance for helpdesk agents to solve customer issues came second in their division.

This was not enough to automatically move them to the final round. Instead, they got one more chance to secure a place in the finals by competing against the other second-placed teams in a challenge round that took place immediately after the second round.

Pushing through the fatigue from staying awake for more than 24 hours, they spent another hour overhauling their script and presentation approach. Their perseverance paid off when they won the challenge round and progressed to the final round to present their solution for the third time, eventually clinching the second runner-up prize.

Assoc Prof Ang praised the team’s positive fighting attitude, which she observed during the CCG weekend training sessions. “The students were humble, eager to learn and improve, and never once complained about having to come to school and stay the whole day and sometimes overnight for training,” she said.

In addition, the team was smart and agile in competition. She noted: “Because they had to do the extra challenge round, they learnt what their strong points are, based on the questions asked by the judges. They used this to their advantage by adapting their presentation in the challenge and final rounds.”

Despite the gruelling journey, the team does not regret the path they ended up taking.

“The challenge round was a blessing in disguise because it made our presentation so much better and helped us become masters of our solution and think of how to address potential questions or present more effectively,” Eunwoo reflected. “It wasn't really like presenting the same case three times; it was like a different presentation every time because we made consistent changes and improvements at each juncture.”

The factors impacting successful patient care are many and varied. Early diagnosis, proper adherence to prescription medication schedules, and effective monitoring and management of chronic disease, for example, all contribute to better outcomes. However, each of these factors can be hindered by outside influences — medication doesn’t work as well if it isn’t taken as prescribed, and disease can be missed or misdiagnosed in early stages if symptoms are mild or not present.

Giovanni Traverso, the Karl Van Tassel Career Development Professor, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, and a gastroenterologist in the Division of Gastroenterology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), is working on a variety of innovative solutions to improve patient care. As a physician and an engineer, he brings a unique perspective.

“Bringing those two domains together is what really can help transform and accelerate our capacity to develop new biomedical devices or new therapies for a range of conditions,” he says. “As physicians, we're extremely fortunate to be able to help individuals. As scientists and engineers, not only can we help individuals … we can help populations.”

Traverso found a passion for this work early in life. His family lived in his father’s native Peru through much of his childhood, but left in the late 1980s at the height of the nation’s political instability, emigrating to Canada, where he began high school.

“In high school, I had the incredible opportunity to actually spend time in a lab,” he says. “I really fell in love with molecular genetics. I loved the lab environment and that ability to investigate a very specific problem, with the hopes that those developments would eventually help people.”

He started medical school immediately after high school, attending the University of Cambridge, but paused his medical training to pursue a PhD in medical sciences at Johns Hopkins University before returning to Cambridge. After completing medical school, he completed internal medicine residency at BWH and his gastroenterology fellowship training at Massachusetts General Hospital, both at Harvard Medical School. For his postdoctoral research, he transitioned to the fields of chemical and biomedical engineering in the laboratory of Professor Robert Langer.

Traverso’s research interests today include biomedical device development, ingestible and implantable robotics, and drug delivery for optimal drug adherence. His academic home at MIT is in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, but his work integrates multiple domains, including mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, material science, and synthetic biology.

“The mechanical engineering department is a tremendous place to engage with students, as well as faculty, towards the development of the next generation of medical devices,” he says. “At the core of many of those medical devices are fundamental mechanical principles.”

Traverso’s team in the Laboratory for Translational Engineering is developing pioneering biomedical devices such as drug delivery systems to enable safe, efficient delivery of therapeutics, and novel diagnostic tests to support early detection of diseases.

The heart of his work, he says, is “about trying to help others. Patients, of course, but also students, to help them see the arc of bench-to-bedside and help stimulate their interest in careers applying engineering to help improve human health.”

More than 50,000 Indian students from secondary schools in Andhra Pradesh have completed the University of Melbournes Schools Engagement Program.

University of Melbourne researchers, in partnership with Girl Geek Academy andfunded bytheeSafetyCommissioner, have developed new artificial intelligence (AI) software, designed to help combat online abuse by empowering victims.

A highly-committed athlete in university lives a life of careful balance – planning training sessions in tandem with lectures and classes, managing an academic load while preparing for events and competitions, staying healthy in the face of daily physical and mental exertion, and weighing up which of the many responsibilities and commitments should come first in the limited 24 hours of a day.

Lucas Chew (Year 2, Environmental Studies) has been an athlete for most of his life, but this balancing act is still a consistent effort, so much so that he quips that his current role as a national finswimming representative feels like he is pursuing a double degree programme instead.

Finswimming is not a common sport in Singapore – so uncommon, in fact, that Lucas is the sole competitive finswimming athlete in the whole of NUS. It is a version of competitive swimming, where athletes don customised fins and snorkelling equipment to traverse the length of the pool at high speed.

“Over the past five years, finswimming has taken over more and more of my life. As a student-athlete, time and energy are always in short supply and require a delicate balance between school, sport, and sleep,” shared Lucas.

While continuing to keep NUS’ flag flying at national competitions as a member of the varsity table tennis team, Year 3 Dentistry undergraduate Janine Chew has also set her sights on widening access to table tennis within the NUS community, and as a means of community outreach beyond the University.

Janine played a central role in organising community events, such as the NUS Racketlon, a two-day multi-sport competition event which aims to promote racket sports in a fun manner, with no minimal skill prerequisites, among the NUS community. The team also recently concluded the Learn-to-Play Table Tennis programme, in collaboration with NUS Office of Student Affairs (OSA) which organises sessions to teach NUS students basic table tennis skills. The programme serves as a stepping stone into the sport for participants who have no prior experience.

The time taken for meticulous planning and execution of these events comes into careful balance alongside schoolwork.  “Key factors that have helped me balance both my sporting and academic commitments would be discipline, time management and having a good support system,” reflected Janine.

“The chance to interact with individuals from diverse sporting backgrounds has broadened my perspective and showed me that there is so much more to sports than just competition; it is also about engaging the community around us. While I might get tired and drained at times, I am reminded of the joy that I feel when I see people enjoying the sport and this helps to push me through the tough times,” she added.

Supporting sporting excellence

Lucas and Janine both credit the NUS Sports Scholarship for helping to even out the scales as they balance their lives as student-athletes.

Every academic year, the University awards up to 20 bond-free sports scholarships to national athletes and outstanding student-athletes, which cover tuition fees and include an annual allowance and on-campus accommodation allowance. Awarded to students pursuing full-time undergraduate programmes at NUS, the scholarship is disbursed in two categories – Sports Excellence for national representatives such as Lucas, and Community Sports for athletes like Janine who have made significant contributions towards promoting active sports participation in NUS.

Janine expressed her appreciation for the NUS Sports Scholarship for helping her to pursue goals in both academics and sports without the constant worry about financial constraints.

“The NUS Community Sports Scholarship has empowered me to channel my enthusiasm for community engagement in sports by spearheading events and initiatives aimed at bringing sports closer to the NUS community. It allowed me to connect and collaborate with some amazing like-minded individuals who share a passion for sports and community engagement,” added Janine. 

Sports support at NUS can also come in the form of subsidies for travel to overseas competitions, such as when Lucas travelled to Colombia recently to represent NUS and Singapore at the Finswimming World University Championship (WUC) 2024, which was subsidised by the U-SPARKS grant for NUS student-athletes who qualify for any World University Championships or Games. Seventy hours of travel time and some amazing local hot chocolate later, Lucas came home with not one, but three new national records for finswimming.

They can also consult the University when alternative arrangements to classes and exams are required, in consideration of overseas competition schedules.

“I’m appreciative of the scholarship for its all-rounded support, clear systems in place for communicating my goals with a sports manager, and the systemic perks of building my academic schedules around my training commitments so that I need not choose one or the other,” explained Lucas.

“We’re all in it together”

The athletic journey in NUS is not one of solitude; TeamNUS athletes are spurred on by the support of friends, family, coaches and teammates. They can also rely on a reliable team of sports managers at OSA, who wear many hats in their role of supporting athletes to pursue their sporting dreams.

Despite being the sole finswimmer in NUS, Lucas has the unwavering support of his sports manager at NUS, Mr Lim Fang Yi, who was himself a student-athlete in the past. “Fang Yi has always had my back administratively in registering for events, such as the recent Finswimming WUC,” said Lucas.

A former national swimmer, Fang Yi recently returned to competitive swimming, clinching three gold medals at the Singapore Masters 2024.

“More importantly, he uses his own experience as a student-athlete and national swimmer to mentor me to develop myself in ways outside of purely sporting performance, but also in community service, leadership, and in balancing my personal commitments, among other things,” Lucas added, emphasising the well-rounded development that comes from stable guidance.

Similar sentiments were also echoed by Janine, as she reflected on her relationship with her sports manager Riley Tan. “I have received a lot of support from the OSA sports managers, especially Riley. I appreciate that they often check in on our well-being and provide us with advice and support, especially when it gets tougher to balance academic and sporting commitments.”

Janine also said, “Riley arranges for regular sessions for catch-ups and updates on our recent developments, providing us with timely feedback where necessary. She also helped to advise me on my future goals and discuss small actionable steps that I can take along the way. The OSA sports managers even helped to guide me in the planning process of my events!”

Recognising excellence, supporting students for future success  

NUS Dean of Students Associate Professor Ho Han Kiat, said, “Co-curricular space is part of the expanded classroom to develop students holistically in preparation for the future of work. Such opportunities allow our students to engage in activities that align with their passion, and to take it to the level in accordance with their motivation. Through such endeavours, students pick up life skills, sharpen their personal effectiveness and become more meaningfully engaged with the community.”

“Besides recognising their accomplishments in different aspects of student life, such as sports, arts and culture, community impact, scholarships are an institutional commitment that we esteem to see our students build themselves towards future success,” Assoc Prof Ho added.

More than 50,000 Indian students from secondary school students in Andhra Pradesh have completed the University of Melbournes Schools Engagement Program.

An Australian research team and their American collaborators have been awarded the 2024 Gordon Bell Prize, regarded as the Nobel Prize ofhigh-performance computing (HPC).

A team of researchers led by Aman Husbands of the School of Arts Sciences has uncovered surprising ways transcription factors—the genetic switches for genes—regulate plant development, revealing how subtle changes in a lipid-binding region can dramatically alter gene regulation.

Troy Van Voorhis, the Robert T. Haslam and Bradley Dewey Professor of Chemistry, will step down as department head of the Department of Chemistry at the end of this academic year. Van Voorhis has served as department head since 2019, previously serving the department as associate department head since 2015.

“Troy has been an invaluable partner and sounding board who could always be counted on for a wonderful mix of wisdom and pragmatism,” says Nergis Mavalvala, the Kathleen and Curtis Marble professor of astrophysics and dean of the MIT School of Science. “While department head, Troy provided calm guidance during the Covid pandemic, encouraging and financially supporting additional programs to improve his community’s quality of life.”

“I have had the pleasure of serving as head of our department for the past five-plus years. It has been a period of significant upheaval in our world,” says Van Voorhis. “Throughout it all, one of my consistent joys has been the privilege of working within the chemistry department and across the wider MIT community on research, education, and community building.”

Under Van Voorhis’ leadership, the Department of Chemistry implemented a department-wide statement of values that launched the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, a Future Faculty Symposium that showcases rising stars in chemistry, and the Creating Bonds in Chemistry program that partners MIT faculty with chemistry faculty at select historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions.

Van Voorhis also oversaw a time of tremendous faculty growth in the department with the addition of nine new faculty. During his tenure as head, he also guided the department through a period of significant growth of interest in chemistry with the number of undergraduate majors, enrolled students, graduate students, and graduate student yields all up significantly.

Van Voorhis also had the honor of celebrating with the entire Institute for Professor Moungi Bawendi’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry — the department’s first win in 18 years, since Professor Richard R. Schrock’s win in 2005.

In addition to his service to the department within the School of Science, Van Voorhis had also co-chaired the Working Group on Curricula and Degrees for the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. This service relates to Van Voorhis’ own research interests and programs.

Van Voorhis’ research lies at the nexus of chemistry and computation, and his work has impact on renewable energy and quantum computing. His lab is focused on developing new methods that provide an accurate description of electron dynamics in molecules and materials. Over the years, his research has led to advances in light-emitting diodes, solar cells, and other devices and technologies crucial to addressing 21st-century energy concerns.   

Van Voorhis received his bachelor's degree in chemistry and mathematics from Rice University and his PhD in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 2001. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, he joined the faculty of MIT in 2003 and was promoted to professor of chemistry in 2012.

He has received many honors and awards, including being named an Alfred P. Sloan research fellow, a fellow of the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, and a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award. He has also received the MIT School of Science’s award for excellence in graduate teaching.

Capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius is a tall order. Achieving that goal will not only require a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, but also a substantial reallocation of land to support that effort and sustain the biosphere, including humans. More land will be needed to accommodate a growing demand for bioenergy and nature-based carbon sequestration while ensuring sufficient acreage for food production and ecological sustainability.

The expanding role of land in a 1.5 C world will be twofold — to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to produce clean energy. Land-based carbon dioxide removal strategies include bioenergy with carbon capture and storage; direct air capture; and afforestation/reforestation and other nature-based solutions. Land-based clean energy production includes wind and solar farms and sustainable bioenergy cropland. Any decision to allocate more land for climate mitigation must also address competing needs for long-term food security and ecosystem health.

Land-based climate mitigation choices vary in terms of costs — amount of land required, implications for food security, impact on biodiversity and other ecosystem services — and benefits — potential for sequestering greenhouse gases and producing clean energy.

Now a study in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of competing land-use and technology options to limit global warming to 1.5 C. Led by researchers at the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3), the study applies the MIT Integrated Global System Modeling (IGSM) framework to evaluate costs and benefits of different land-based climate mitigation options in Sky2050, a 1.5 C climate-stabilization scenario developed by Shell.

Under this scenario, demand for bioenergy and natural carbon sinks increase along with the need for sustainable farming and food production. To determine if there’s enough land to meet all these growing demands, the research team uses the global hectare (gha) — an area of 10,000 square meters, or 2.471 acres — as the standard unit of measurement, and current estimates of the Earth’s total habitable land area (about 10 gha) and land area used for food production and bioenergy (5 gha).

The team finds that with transformative changes in policy, land management practices, and consumption patterns, global land is sufficient to provide a sustainable supply of food and ecosystem services throughout this century while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with the 1.5 C goal. These transformative changes include policies to protect natural ecosystems; stop deforestation and accelerate reforestation and afforestation; promote advances in sustainable agriculture technology and practice; reduce agricultural and food waste; and incentivize consumers to purchase sustainably produced goods.

If such changes are implemented, 2.5–3.5 gha of land would be used for NBS practices to sequester 3–6 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO₂ per year, and 0.4–0.6 gha of land would be allocated for energy production — 0.2–0.3 gha for bioenergy and 0.2–0.35 gha for wind and solar power generation.

“Our scenario shows that there is enough land to support a 1.5 degree C future as long as effective policies at national and global levels are in place,” says CS3 Principal Research Scientist Angelo Gurgel, the study’s lead author. “These policies must not only promote efficient use of land for food, energy, and nature, but also be supported by long-term commitments from government and industry decision-makers.”

Capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius is a tall order. Achieving that goal will not only require a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, but also a substantial reallocation of land to support that effort and sustain the biosphere, including humans. More land will be needed to accommodate a growing demand for bioenergy and nature-based carbon sequestration while ensuring sufficient acreage for food production and ecological sustainability.

The expanding role of land in a 1.5 C world will be twofold — to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to produce clean energy. Land-based carbon dioxide removal strategies include bioenergy with carbon capture and storage; direct air capture; and afforestation/reforestation and other nature-based solutions. Land-based clean energy production includes wind and solar farms and sustainable bioenergy cropland. Any decision to allocate more land for climate mitigation must also address competing needs for long-term food security and ecosystem health.

Land-based climate mitigation choices vary in terms of costs — amount of land required, implications for food security, impact on biodiversity and other ecosystem services — and benefits — potential for sequestering greenhouse gases and producing clean energy.

Now a study in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of competing land-use and technology options to limit global warming to 1.5 C. Led by researchers at the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3), the study applies the MIT Integrated Global System Modeling (IGSM) framework to evaluate costs and benefits of different land-based climate mitigation options in Sky2050, a 1.5 C climate-stabilization scenario developed by Shell.

Under this scenario, demand for bioenergy and natural carbon sinks increase along with the need for sustainable farming and food production. To determine if there’s enough land to meet all these growing demands, the research team uses the global hectare (gha) — an area of 10,000 square meters, or 2.471 acres — as the standard unit of measurement, and current estimates of the Earth’s total habitable land area (about 10 gha) and land area used for food production and bioenergy (5 gha).

The team finds that with transformative changes in policy, land management practices, and consumption patterns, global land is sufficient to provide a sustainable supply of food and ecosystem services throughout this century while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with the 1.5 C goal. These transformative changes include policies to protect natural ecosystems; stop deforestation and accelerate reforestation and afforestation; promote advances in sustainable agriculture technology and practice; reduce agricultural and food waste; and incentivize consumers to purchase sustainably produced goods.

If such changes are implemented, 2.5–3.5 gha of land would be used for NBS practices to sequester 3–6 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO₂ per year, and 0.4–0.6 gha of land would be allocated for energy production — 0.2–0.3 gha for bioenergy and 0.2–0.35 gha for wind and solar power generation.

“Our scenario shows that there is enough land to support a 1.5 degree C future as long as effective policies at national and global levels are in place,” says CS3 Principal Research Scientist Angelo Gurgel, the study’s lead author. “These policies must not only promote efficient use of land for food, energy, and nature, but also be supported by long-term commitments from government and industry decision-makers.”

In this series, NUS News profiles the personalities shaping vibrant residential life and culture on campus, and how they craft a holistic residential experience that brings out the best in student residents.

When his son graduated from university in 2016, Associate Professor Prahlad Vadakkepat felt a sudden void in his life. Over the years, he had taken on the role of a mentor, learning about the younger generation’s challenges and perspectives as he supported his child through his academic journey.

But as his son prepared to enter the working world, their topics of conversation shifted, and Assoc Prof Prahlad was struck by a sense of loss. “There was a vacuum, like there was something I was missing out on,” he said.

Then came the serendipitous email in early 2017. It detailed an opening for Master of a new hostel at Prince George’s Park Residences at NUS. Without hesitation, he applied for it.

“(It) turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life,” the professor, who hails from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the NUS College of Design and Engineering, said. “I truly enjoy serving as the Master of Pioneer House.”

He was a mentor once more, this time to hundreds of students as Master of Pioneer House.

Pioneer House’s journey began in 2017, when the Office of Student Affairs proposed a fourth model of student housing in NUS. Initially dubbed PGP House, it was renamed Pioneer House in 2022, when NUS officially recognised the “House” model.

Pioneer House lives up to its name, being the first hostel on campus to merge NUS’ three existing housing models. It balances the vibrancy of halls and residential colleges with the quiet freedom of residences. In short, the House model balances residents’ involvement while maintaining a lively student residence.

Pioneer House also features Dining with Master sessions, where Assoc Prof Prahlad and the students gather for a weekly chat over dinner.

It currently houses over 600 residents, who can participate in interest groups, find peer mentors for support, and rely on Pastoral Care Teams (PCTs) comprising student leaders and staff when they need help.

NUS sits down with Assoc Prof Prahlad as he shares his journey in making Pioneer House the caring home it is for students today.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What’s a typical day like for you?

In the morning, I check various Telegram channels for any messages that need attention, and we start the day with warm greetings. Evenings often involve student activities in the House, ranging from cultural events, sports, and training to various meetings.

Living in a hostel surrounded by familiar faces is both comforting and reassuring. It creates a sense of belonging, like being part of a family. Every time I pass a resident or colleague, we exchange smiles and waves and engage in small conversations. These small interactions make a big difference – I truly enjoy interacting with young minds and fellow residents.

Q: What’s buzzing at Pioneer House?

We have all kinds of student life activities for residents to choose from, allowing them to explore and destress after a long day of classes. Before COVID-19, we had something called “Chill and Chat”, where we came together, went outside, and sat in a space between the blocks. There, we would chat and dine – an under-the-stars kind of thing.

We had an event for Deepavali as well! There was Indian food, Indian dancing, and people wore traditional costumes. There was also henna and floral decoration (using) flowers or powders. And once night fell, sparklers were lit.

We also celebrate birthdays. When we have a Dining with Master or Cluster event, a PCT event, or a meeting with student leaders, we celebrate the birthdays of students as well as the management team with a cake. I'm a vegetarian, and the students will buy me a cake without eggs. There’s the sense that you belong and matter in Pioneer House. They feel that I matter to them, and they feel that they matter to me, and they care about the food I eat.

Q: Tell us about the theme of “Frugality and Sustainability” at Pioneer House. How did that come about?

During my childhood, my grandmother would make sure we never wasted even a single grain of rice. As I grew older, I began to realise how much we waste while many communities struggle for a better life. This awareness led me to delve deeper into the concepts of frugality and sustainability.

At Pioneer House, we integrate the principles of frugality and sustainability into our daily practices, whether it's managing resources, nurturing plants, or fostering leadership.

Pioneer House has a community garden where residents cultivate and harvest their own vegetables. It is equivalent to the size of about two master bedrooms. We grow sweet potatoes, lady's fingers, and other leafy vegetables, then we harvest them. We go to the barbecue pit nearby, cook, and we share.

By weaving these values into every aspect of our operations, we foster a culture that respects resources, promotes sustainability, and nurtures growth in all forms.

Q: What are the most rewarding and challenging parts of being a Master?

The most rewarding aspect is the opportunity to connect with a diverse group of people and work collaboratively to provide the best experience for our students. Here, we create a sense of belonging and mattering; it’s really important.

Once, after a break, a student from Pioneer House sat next to me on the bus. I asked her, “Did you go home (during the break)?” She told me she did, and that she was in tears on the flight back to Singapore from her home country. I had also just come back from India, and I told her: “I cried too.” It is these authentic conversations – I was happy that she could share that with me, and that I could share that with her. Again, a sense of mattering. We care, and we do things genuinely.

The challenge was establishing a completely new hostel model in 2017. We didn’t have a specific model to follow; the closest existing framework was the Hall model. We had extensive discussions and empowered ourselves through research, exploring frameworks that would help us build a community grounded in care and support. I had previously helped a community in India and developed a social enterprise, uniting around 900 individuals from varied backgrounds for the project and honing my ability to form personal human connections. My entrepreneurial background, combined with my experience in brainstorming and design thinking, helped me navigate these uncharted waters.

Concepts like a sense of belonging and mattering, inclusive leadership, frugality, and sustainability became central to our approach. We integrated the principles of belonging into our programmes and events, fostering a community where students could work together, while also feeling free to be themselves. One such example is PHamigo—creatively named to reflect its affiliation and mission, it is a group formed by residents which leverages the "Design-Your-Own-Course" academic scheme to foster inclusiveness by engaging the international student community. The support from student leaders was instrumental in weaving these values into the very fabric of Pioneer House.

Q: What makes Pioneer House home for you?

Colleagues and residents share a strong bond and support each other wholeheartedly. During the COVID-19 period, my family was in India – that was the first time I lived alone. The community really helped me, such as my House colleagues who would bring me fruits and homemade food. Though I am a strict vegetarian, I also made sure to source specially cooked chicken for my colleagues as a gesture of appreciation.

Residents often greet us warmly, waving whenever we cross paths, whether in the House, on the shuttle bus, or on the MRT. This deep sense of belonging fosters a familial community atmosphere. During the Dining with Master sessions, I often share stories about my family, and the residents frequently ask about how we’re doing. Pioneer House truly feels like home.

More than 350 distinguished guests comprising university and faculty members, donors, cherished alumni, students and friends came together to celebrate the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ (FASS) legacy of education and research excellence at a gala dinner held at One Farrer Hotel on 22 November 2024.

From humble beginnings to a world-class faculty

FASS boasts a rich and illustrious history that spans close to a century.

The Faculty began by offering diploma courses in the four disciplines of English, History, Geography and Economics in 1929. Over the years, in response to the nation’s growth and local and international needs, other departments such as Social Work (1952), Philosophy (1954), Political Science (1961), Communications and New Media (2005), and many others were formed.

Today, the Faculty is one of the largest faculties at NUS boasting 16 different departments and programmes and academic offerings in the fields of humanities, social sciences, Asian studies, and language studies that cover a rich and diverse array of disciplines ranging from Southeast Asian Studies and Psychology to Theatre Studies, and Sociology and Anthropology.

From just fewer than 40 students taking its classes in 1929, FASS welcomed about 4,400 undergraduates and more than 1,500 postgraduates in the current academic year. The Faculty also has a strong international outlook, offering students diverse opportunities to study abroad and engage with global perspectives through joint degree programmes, exchange programmes, internships and collaborations with top universities worldwide such as King’s College London and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. In the last academic year alone, the Faculty received more than 800 exchange students from 34 countries, a testament to its global appeal and multicultural campus environment.  

Reflecting on FASS’ legacy at the dinner, Dean of FASS and FASS alumnus Professor Lionel Wee noted that the Faculty has never wavered in its mission to advance knowledge and learning in the humanities and social sciences. He said, “Over the decades, while the world around us has changed, this mission has remained steadfast – the guiding of generations of students to become thoughtful leaders and engaged citizens who make a difference in Singapore and beyond.”  

FASS alumni have gone on to excel on the national and global stages – playing leading roles in shaping global and public policy, trailblazing business initiatives in the private sector, advancing cultural initiatives and driving social change. Eminent alumni include former President of Singapore Mr S R Nathan; Former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and social scientist Dr Noeleen Heyzer; influential Asian historian and NUS Emeritus Professor Wang Gungwu, as well as prominent business entrepreneur and Founder of Banyan Tree Holdings, Mr Ho Kwon Ping.

Over the years, the Faculty has continuously spearheaded fresh educational strategies – demonstrating its keen understanding of evolving societal trends. In 2019, it introduced the FASS 2.0 Industry Tracks initiative that provides undergraduates industry-relevant training to complement the FASS education. A year later, the Faculty and the NUS Faculty of Science launched the NUS College of Humanities and Sciences with interdisciplinary education as its focus.

Indeed, initiatives such as CHS, said Prof Wee, demonstrate FASS’ dedication to equip students to meet the demands of an interconnected and rapidly changing world. “This interdisciplinary approach helps prepare them to view challenges from multiple perspectives, positioning them as well-rounded leaders and changemakers.”

Echoing similar sentiments was guest-of-honour, Prof Aaron Thean, NUS Deputy President (Academic Affairs) and Provost, who noted that CHS also offers more opportunities for NUS academics as it encourages groundbreaking interdisciplinary research partnerships between FASS and faculties across NUS. FASS, he stressed, “has been, and will continue to be, a cornerstone of our university and a place where intellectual exploration and a sense of community can be found.”

FASS alumni: Memories of FASS and the value of a FASS education

The gala dinner was an opportunity for alumni to reconnect and recall fond memories of their time at FASS.

Reminiscing about her university days, Ms Nichol Ng, CEO of food and beverage business X-Inc Group and Co-founder of the Food Bank Singapore, shared that her best memories were of studying on the steps of the Forum near the Central Library and climbing the hills to get to class.

The rigour and diversity of experiences offered by the Faculty proved invaluable in the FASS Economics and Japanese Studies alumna’s career. “The diversity of people whom I have met in FASS also allowed me to work with peers from different backgrounds and passions, establishing the people skills that I have today,” she added.

Another alumna, Ms Nur Diyana shared that the academic rigour and emphasis on critical inquiry during her time at the Department of Malay Studies sharpened her analytical thinking and nurtured a deep curiosity. “This has been instrumental in my graduate studies and continues to influence my work as a research librarian at NUS Libraries, where I draw upon those same skills to navigate complex information and contribute meaningfully to my field.”

Professor Robbie Goh, former FASS Dean and Provost at the Singapore University of Social Sciences observed how far FASS has come, with international university counterparts now lining up to seek potential collaborations with FASS – a far cry from the situation he witnessed as a young FASS academic in the 1990s. FASS, he added, had made a profound impact on his professional and personal lives.

He said, “FASS is my alma mater as well as my intellectual home and where I spent 33 years as an academic.  It’s where I met my wife when we were undergraduates together. Without the opportunities and encouragement that FASS gave me, I simply would not have had the resources and wherewithal to become an academic.”

Looking ahead – A FASS that continues to nurture young changemakers, with a strong social ethos

To mark the Faculty’s 95th birthday, FASSCares, an annual community engagement programme that started in 2018, held a fundraising initiative for Club Rainbow – a charity that supports children with chronic illnesses and their families. FASS had chosen to partner with Club Rainbow given a shared commitment to social responsibility and community support. A special outing was also organised for 22 children from Club Rainbow and their families at Jewel Changi Airport’s Canopy Park in September, where FASS staff, students and alumni spent the afternoon playing with the children and their families on the slides and bouncing nets, and bonded over lunch.

Close to S$66,000 was raised at this fundraising initiative through donations from staff, students and alumni and ticket sales for the gala dinner.

Thanking FASS for its efforts at the dinner, Mr Teo Siang Loong, Executive Director of Club Rainbow said, “We are currently serving close to 5,000 individuals in Club Rainbow including 1,200 children with chronic illnesses, many of whom have special needs and disabilities. In this year of an uncertain economic climate and inflationary environment, our donations have decreased overall. All the support garnered will have a direct impact on the children in need and on the vulnerable families.”

FASS also launched the new 95th FASS Distinguished Speaker Series with the aim to inspire FASS students towards excellence through meaningful engagements with alumni about their achievements. The series’ inaugural speaker, Ms Denise Phua, Member of Parliament for Jalan Besar GRC and Mayor for Central Singapore District, engaged students in September on the leadership lessons she learnt from her careers in the private, public and social sectors.

As FASS enters its centennial, Prof Wee stressed that the Faculty will focus on building on the work of past FASS cohorts to advance an interdisciplinary education that has both breadth and depth. It will continue to nurture adaptable, empathetic and innovative problem-solvers with a strong social ethos.

The Faculty, he added, is also committed to enhancing impact through research that spans disciplines and connects with real-world issues, “from urban studies to public policy, from heritage conservation to digital humanities.”

When asked for his views on the role FASS will take in shaping contemporary society, Dr Maliki Osman, an alumnus and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Education and Foreign Affairs, summed it up succinctly. “In today's world where issues are becoming increasingly complex and require a multi-disciplinary approach to solve, the humanities and social sciences continue to play an important role…I am confident that FASS will continue to scale new heights and nurture tomorrow’s citizens – people who are creative, collaborative and compassionate.”

For four decades, more than one million Jews left the USSR despite the Soviet Union’s complex bureaucracy and opposition to emigration. Doctoral candidate Sasha Zborovsky explores the intricate dynamics.

The initiative expands Penn’s long-standing commitment to need-based financial aid, guaranteeing no-loan financial aid packages to eligible students and families since 2008.

Deeply Rooted is a community partnership that plants trees, greens vacant lots, and funds grassroots programs. The goal: health justice in action.

The Quaker Girls Dance Team partners with the Netter Center for Community Partnerships to mentor West Philadelphia dance and cheer teams.

The Responsible Computing for Just Futures Initiative, an initiative of the Responsible Computing Challenge at Penn Carey Law, has ambitious plans for the mindset with which the next generation of Penn students will engage careers at the intersection of law and technology.

With the bat population on asharp declinesince 2008, the Program collaborated withPenn SustainabilityandPenn Facilities and Real Estate Services to develop bat boxes designed to mimic tree habitat and support the daily needs and overall health of bats.

The seventh Penn in Latin America and the Caribbeanconference centered on the theme of “Public and Community Engaged Scholarship in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Its Diaspora.”

Penn’s fall semester officially began in August, as many students returned to campus. While staff, faculty, and postdocs are largely in West Philadelphia year-round, the fall marks a reset and starting point for many. The late summer and mild fall weather brings the natural beauty of campus to life.

The new Penn Plant Adaptability and Resilience Center brought together faculty speakers from five schools for its Climate Solutions for the Living World symposium.

The Council consists of five faculty members collaborating to enhance visibility and impact of AI research across Penn.

The MIT Press has released a comprehensive report that addresses how open access policies shape research and what is needed to maximize their positive impact on the research ecosystem.

The report, entitled “Access to Science and Scholarship 2024: Building an Evidence Base to Support the Future of Open Research Policy,” is the outcome of a National Science Foundation-funded workshop held at the Washington headquarters of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Sept. 20.

While open access aims to democratize knowledge, its implementation has been a factor in the consolidation of the academic publishing industry, an explosion in published articles with inconsistent review and quality control, and new costs that may be hard for researchers and universities to bear, with less-affluent schools and regions facing the greatest risk. The workshop examined how open access and other open science policies may affect research and researchers in the future, how to measure their impact, and how to address emerging challenges.

The event brought together leading experts to discuss critical issues in open scientific and scholarly publishing. These issues include:

• the impact of open access policies on the research ecosystem;
• the enduring role of peer review in ensuring research quality;
• the challenges and opportunities of data sharing and curation; and
• the evolving landscape of scholarly communications infrastructure.

The report identifies key research questions in order to advance open science and scholarship. These include:

• How can we better model and anticipate the consequences of government policies on public access to science and scholarship?
• How can research funders support experimentation with new and more equitable business models for scientific publishing? and
• If the dissemination of scholarship is decoupled from peer review and evaluation, who is best suited to perform that evaluation, and how should that process be managed and funded?

“This workshop report is a crucial step in building a data-driven roadmap for the future of open science publishing and policy,” says Phillip Sharp, Institute Professor and professor of biology emeritus at MIT, and faculty lead of the working group behind the workshop and the report. “By identifying key research questions around infrastructure, training, technology, and business models, we aim to ensure that open science practices are sustainable and that they contribute to the highest quality research.”

The full report is available for download, along with video recordings of the workshop.

The MIT Press is a leading academic publisher committed to advancing knowledge and innovation. It publishes significant books and journals across a wide range of disciplines spanning science, technology, design, humanities, and social science.

The MIT Press has released a comprehensive report that addresses how open access policies shape research and what is needed to maximize their positive impact on the research ecosystem.

The report, entitled “Access to Science and Scholarship 2024: Building an Evidence Base to Support the Future of Open Research Policy,” is the outcome of a National Science Foundation-funded workshop held at the Washington headquarters of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Sept. 20.

While open access aims to democratize knowledge, its implementation has been a factor in the consolidation of the academic publishing industry, an explosion in published articles with inconsistent review and quality control, and new costs that may be hard for researchers and universities to bear, with less-affluent schools and regions facing the greatest risk. The workshop examined how open access and other open science policies may affect research and researchers in the future, how to measure their impact, and how to address emerging challenges.

The event brought together leading experts to discuss critical issues in open scientific and scholarly publishing. These issues include:

• the impact of open access policies on the research ecosystem;
• the enduring role of peer review in ensuring research quality;
• the challenges and opportunities of data sharing and curation; and
• the evolving landscape of scholarly communications infrastructure.

The report identifies key research questions in order to advance open science and scholarship. These include:

• How can we better model and anticipate the consequences of government policies on public access to science and scholarship?
• How can research funders support experimentation with new and more equitable business models for scientific publishing? and
• If the dissemination of scholarship is decoupled from peer review and evaluation, who is best suited to perform that evaluation, and how should that process be managed and funded?

“This workshop report is a crucial step in building a data-driven roadmap for the future of open science publishing and policy,” says Phillip Sharp, Institute Professor and professor of biology emeritus at MIT, and faculty lead of the working group behind the workshop and the report. “By identifying key research questions around infrastructure, training, technology, and business models, we aim to ensure that open science practices are sustainable and that they contribute to the highest quality research.”

The full report is available for download, along with video recordings of the workshop.

The MIT Press is a leading academic publisher committed to advancing knowledge and innovation. It publishes significant books and journals across a wide range of disciplines spanning science, technology, design, humanities, and social science.

Captivated as a child by video games and puzzles, Marzyeh Ghassemi was also fascinated at an early age in health. Luckily, she found a path where she could combine the two interests. 

“Although I had considered a career in health care, the pull of computer science and engineering was stronger,” says Ghassemi, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and principal investigator at the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS). “When I found that computer science broadly, and AI/ML specifically, could be applied to health care, it was a convergence of interests.”

Today, Ghassemi and her Healthy ML research group at LIDS work on the deep study of how machine learning (ML) can be made more robust, and be subsequently applied to improve safety and equity in health.

Growing up in Texas and New Mexico in an engineering-oriented Iranian-American family, Ghassemi had role models to follow into a STEM career. While she loved puzzle-based video games — “Solving puzzles to unlock other levels or progress further was a very attractive challenge” — her mother also engaged her in more advanced math early on, enticing her toward seeing math as more than arithmetic.

“Adding or multiplying are basic skills emphasized for good reason, but the focus can obscure the idea that much of higher-level math and science are more about logic and puzzles,” Ghassemi says. “Because of my mom’s encouragement, I knew there were fun things ahead.”

Ghassemi says that in addition to her mother, many others supported her intellectual development. As she earned her undergraduate degree at New Mexico State University, the director of the Honors College and a former Marshall Scholar — Jason Ackelson, now a senior advisor to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — helped her to apply for a Marshall Scholarship that took her to Oxford University, where she earned a master’s degree in 2011 and first became interested in the new and rapidly evolving field of machine learning. During her PhD work at MIT, Ghassemi says she received support “from professors and peers alike,” adding, “That environment of openness and acceptance is something I try to replicate for my students.”

While working on her PhD, Ghassemi also encountered her first clue that biases in health data can hide in machine learning models.

She had trained models to predict outcomes using health data, “and the mindset at the time was to use all available data. In neural networks for images, we had seen that the right features would be learned for good performance, eliminating the need to hand-engineer specific features.”

During a meeting with Leo Celi, principal research scientist at the MIT Laboratory for Computational Physiology and IMES and a member of Ghassemi’s thesis committee, Celi asked if Ghassemi had checked how well the models performed on patients of different genders, insurance types, and self-reported races.

Ghassemi did check, and there were gaps. “We now have almost a decade of work showing that these model gaps are hard to address — they stem from existing biases in health data and default technical practices. Unless you think carefully about them, models will naively reproduce and extend biases,” she says.

Ghassemi has been exploring such issues ever since.

Her favorite breakthrough in the work she has done came about in several parts. First, she and her research group showed that learning models could recognize a patient’s race from medical images like chest X-rays, which radiologists are unable to do. The group then found that models optimized to perform well “on average” did not perform as well for women and minorities. This past summer, her group combined these findings to show that the more a model learned to predict a patient’s race or gender from a medical image, the worse its performance gap would be for subgroups in those demographics. Ghassemi and her team found that the problem could be mitigated if a model was trained to account for demographic differences, instead of being focused on overall average performance — but this process has to be performed at every site where a model is deployed.

“We are emphasizing that models trained to optimize performance (balancing overall performance with lowest fairness gap) in one hospital setting are not optimal in other settings. This has an important impact on how models are developed for human use,” Ghassemi says. “One hospital might have the resources to train a model, and then be able to demonstrate that it performs well, possibly even with specific fairness constraints. However, our research shows that these performance guarantees do not hold in new settings. A model that is well-balanced in one site may not function effectively in a different environment. This impacts the utility of models in practice, and it’s essential that we work to address this issue for those who develop and deploy models.”

Ghassemi’s work is informed by her identity.

“I am a visibly Muslim woman and a mother — both have helped to shape how I see the world, which informs my research interests,” she says. “I work on the robustness of machine learning models, and how a lack of robustness can combine with existing biases. That interest is not a coincidence.”

Regarding her thought process, Ghassemi says inspiration often strikes when she is outdoors — bike-riding in New Mexico as an undergraduate, rowing at Oxford, running as a PhD student at MIT, and these days walking by the Cambridge Esplanade. She also says she has found it helpful when approaching a complicated problem to think about the parts of the larger problem and try to understand how her assumptions about each part might be incorrect.

“In my experience, the most limiting factor for new solutions is what you think you know,” she says. “Sometimes it’s hard to get past your own (partial) knowledge about something until you dig really deeply into a model, system, etc., and realize that you didn’t understand a subpart correctly or fully.”

As passionate as Ghassemi is about her work, she intentionally keeps track of life’s bigger picture.

“When you love your research, it can be hard to stop that from becoming your identity — it’s something that I think a lot of academics have to be aware of,” she says. “I try to make sure that I have interests (and knowledge) beyond my own technical expertise.

“One of the best ways to help prioritize a balance is with good people. If you have family, friends, or colleagues who encourage you to be a full person, hold on to them!”

Having won many awards and much recognition for the work that encompasses two early passions — computer science and health — Ghassemi professes a faith in seeing life as a journey.

“There’s a quote by the Persian poet Rumi that is translated as, ‘You are what you are looking for,’” she says. “At every stage of your life, you have to reinvest in finding who you are, and nudging that towards who you want to be.”

Filter feeders are everywhere in the animal world, from tiny crustaceans and certain types of coral and krill, to various molluscs, barnacles, and even massive basking sharks and baleen whales. Now, MIT engineers have found that one filter feeder has evolved to sift food in ways that could improve the design of industrial water filters.

In a paper appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team characterizes the filter-feeding mechanism of the mobula ray — a family of aquatic rays that includes two manta species and seven devil rays. Mobula rays feed by swimming open-mouthed through plankton-rich regions of the ocean and filtering plankton particles into their gullet as water streams into their mouths and out through their gills.

The floor of the mobula ray’s mouth is lined on either side with parallel, comb-like structures, called plates, that siphon water into the ray’s gills. The MIT team has shown that the dimensions of these plates may allow for incoming plankton to bounce all the way across the plates and further into the ray’s cavity, rather than out through the gills. What’s more, the ray’s gills absorb oxygen from the outflowing water, helping the ray to simultaneously breathe while feeding.

“We show that the mobula ray has evolved the geometry of these plates to be the perfect size to balance feeding and breathing,” says study author Anette “Peko” Hosoi, the Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

The engineers fabricated a simple water filter modeled after the mobula ray’s plankton-filtering features. They studied how water flowed through the filter when it was fitted with 3D-printed plate-like structures. The team took the results of these experiments and drew up a blueprint, which they say designers can use to optimize industrial cross-flow filters, which are broadly similar in configuration to that of the mobula ray.

“We want to expand the design space of traditional cross-flow filtration with new knowledge from the manta ray,” says lead author and MIT postdoc Xinyu Mao PhD ’24. “People can choose a parameter regime of the mobula ray so they could potentially improve overall filter performance.”

Hosoi and Mao co-authored the new study with Irmgard Bischofberger, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT.

A better trade-off

The new study grew out of the group’s focus on filtration during the height of the Covid pandemic, when the researchers were designing face masks to filter out the virus. Since then, Mao has shifted focus to study filtration in animals and how certain filter-feeding mechanisms might improve filters used in industry, such as in water treatment plants.

Mao observed that any industrial filter must strike a balance between permeability (how easily fluid can flow through a filter), and selectivity (how successful a filter is at keeping out particles of a target size). For instance, a membrane that is studded with large holes might be highly permeable, meaning a lot of water can be pumped through using very little energy. However, the membrane’s large holes would let many particles through, making it very low in selectivity. Likewise, a membrane with much smaller pores would be more selective yet also require more energy to pump the water through the smaller openings.

“We asked ourselves, how do we do better with this tradeoff between permeability and selectivity?” Hosoi says.

As Mao looked into filter-feeding animals, he found that the mobula ray has struck an ideal balance between permeability and selectivity: The ray is highly permeable, in that it can let water into its mouth and out through its gills quickly enough to capture oxygen to breathe. At the same time, it is highly selective, filtering and feeding on plankton rather than letting the particles stream out through the gills.

The researchers realized that the ray’s filtering features are broadly similar to that of industrial cross-flow filters. These filters are designed such that fluid flows across a permeable membrane that lets through most of the fluid, while any polluting particles continue flowing across the membrane and eventually out into a reservoir of waste.

The team wondered whether the mobula ray might inspire design improvements to industrial cross-flow filters. For that, they took a deeper dive into the dynamics of mobula ray filtration.

A vortex key

As part of their new study, the team fabricated a simple filter inspired by the mobula ray. The filter’s design is what engineers refer to as a “leaky channel” — effectively, a pipe with holes along its sides. In this case, the team’s “channel” consists of two flat, transparent acrylic plates that are glued together at the edges, with a slight opening between the plates through which fluid can be pumped. At one end of the channel, the researchers inserted 3D-printed structures resembling the grooved plates that run along the floor of the mobula ray’s mouth.

The team then pumped water through the channel at various rates, along with colored dye to visualize the flow. They took images across the channel and observed an interesting transition: At slow pumping rates, the flow was “very peaceful,” and fluid easily slipped through the grooves in the printed plates and out into a reservoir. When the researchers increased the pumping rate, the faster-flowing fluid did not slip through, but appeared to swirl at the mouth of each groove, creating a vortex, similar to a small knot of hair between the tips of a comb’s teeth.

“This vortex is not blocking water, but it is blocking particles,” Hosoi explains. “Whereas in a slower flow, particles go through the filter with the water, at higher flow rates, particles try to get through the filter but are blocked by this vortex and are shot down the channel instead. The vortex is helpful because it prevents particles from flowing out.”

The team surmised that vortices are the key to mobula rays’ filter-feeding ability. The ray is able to swim at just the right speed that water, streaming into its mouth, can form vortices between the grooved plates. These vortices effectively block any plankton particles — even those that are smaller than the space between plates. The particles then bounce across the plates and head further into the ray’s cavity, while the rest of the water can still flow between the plates and out through the gills.

The researchers used the results of their experiments, along with dimensions of the filtering features of mobula rays, to develop a blueprint for cross-flow filtration.

“We have provided practical guidance on how to actually filter as the mobula ray does,” Mao offers.

“You want to design a filter such that you’re in the regime where you generate vortices,” Hosoi says. “Our guidelines tell you: If you want your plant to pump at a certain rate, then your filter has to have a particular pore diameter and spacing to generate vortices that will filter out particles of this size. The mobula ray is giving us a really nice rule of thumb for rational design.”

This work was supported, in part, by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the Harvey P. Greenspan Fellowship Fund. 

James Wesley “Jim” Harris PhD ’67, professor emeritus of Spanish and linguistics, passed away on Nov. 10. He was 92.

Harris attended the University of Georgia, the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He later earned a master’s degree in linguistics from Louisiana State University and a PhD in linguistics from MIT.

Harris joined the MIT faculty as an assistant professor in 1967, where he remained until his retirement in 1996. During his tenure, he served as head of what was then called the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.

“I met Jim when I came to MIT in 1977 as department head of the neonatal Department of Linguistics and Philosophy,” says Samuel Jay Keyser, MIT professor emeritus of linguistics. “Throughout his career in the department, he never relinquished his connection to the unit that first employed him at MIT.”

In his early days at MIT, when French, German, and Russian dominated as elite “languages of science and world literature,” Harris championed, over some opposition, the introduction of Spanish language and literature courses.

He later oversaw the inclusion of Japanese and Chinese courses as language offerings at MIT. He promoted undergraduate courses in linguistics, leading to a full undergraduate degree program and later broadening the focus of the prestigious PhD program. 

His research in linguistics centered on theoretical phonology and morphology. His books, presentations at professional meetings, and articles in peer-reviewed journals were among the most discussed — in both positive and negative assessments, as he noted — by prominent scholars in the field. The ability to teach complex technical material comfortably in Spanish, plus the status of an MIT professorship, resulted in invitations to teach at universities across Spain and Latin America. He was also highly valued as a member of the editorial boards of several professional journals.

“I remember Jim most of all for being the consummate scholar,” Keyser says. “His articles were models of argumentation. They were assembled with all the precision of an Inca wall and all the beauty of a Faberge Egg. You couldn’t slip a credit card through any of its arguments, they were so superbly sculpted.”

Having achieved national recognition as an English-Spanish bilingual teacher and teacher-trainer, Harris was engaged as a writer at the Modern Language Materials Development Center in New York. Later, he co-authored, with Guillermo Segreda, a series of popular college-level Spanish textbooks.

“Harris belonged to Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle’s first generation of graduate students,” says MIT linguist Michael John Kenstowicz. “Together they overturned the distributionalist model of the structuralists in favor of ordered generative rules.”

After retiring from MIT, he remained internationally recognized as a highly influential figure in the area of Romance linguistics, and “el decano” (“the dean”) of Spanish phonology.

Harris was married to Florence Warshawsky Harris for 50 years until her passing in 2020. In 2011, in celebration of the program’s 50th anniversary, they partnered to prepare and publish a detailed history of the linguistics program’s origins. Warshawsky Harris, formerly an MIT graduate student, also edited Chomsky and Halle’s influential "The Sound Pattern on English" and numerous other important linguistic texts.

Harris’ scholarship was widely recognized in a diverse group of scholarly articles and textbooks he authored, co-authored, edited, and published.

Harris was born outside Atlanta, Georgia, in 1932. During the Korean War, he performed his military service as the clarinet and saxophone instructor at the U.S. Naval School of Music in Washington. After his discharge, he directed the band at the Charlotte Hall School in Maryland, where he also taught Spanish, French, and Latin.

Harris is survived by ​​his daughter, Lynn Corinne Harris, his son-in-law, Rabbi David Adelson, and his grandchildren, Bee Adelson and Sam Harris.

In the latest step to implement commitments made in MIT’s Fast Forward climate action plan, staff from the Department of Facilities; Office of Sustainability; and Environment, Health and Safety Office are advancing new solar panel installations this fall and winter on four major campus buildings: The Stratton Student Center (W20), the Dewey Library building (E53), and two newer buildings, New Vassar (W46) and the Theater Arts building (W97).

These four new installations, in addition to existing rooftop solar installations on campus, are “just one part of our broader strategy to reduce MIT’s carbon footprint and transition to clean energy,” says Joe Higgins, vice president for campus services and stewardship.

The installations will not only meet but exceed the target set for total solar energy production on campus in the Fast Forward climate action plan that was issued in 2021. With an initial target of 500 kilowatts of installed solar capacity on campus, the new installations, along with those already in place, will bring the total output to roughly 650 kW, exceeding the goal. The solar installations are an important facet of MIT’s approach to eliminating all direct campus emissions by 2050.

The process of advancing to the stage of placing solar panels on campus rooftops is much more complex than just getting them installed on an ordinary house. The process began with a detailed assessment of the potential for reducing the campus greenhouse gas footprint. A first cut eliminated rooftops that were too shaded by trees or other buildings. Then, the schedule for regular replacement of roofs had to be taken into account — it’s better to put new solar panels on top of a roof that will not need replacement in a few years. Other roofs, especially lab buildings, simply had too much existing equipment on them to allow a large area of space for solar panels.

Randa Ghattas, senior sustainability project manager, and Taya Dixon, assistant director for capital budgets and contracts within the Department of Facilities, spearheaded the project. Their initial assessment showed that there were many buildings identified with significant solar potential, and it took the impetus of the Fast Forward plan to kick things into action. 

Even after winnowing down the list of campus buildings based on shading and the life cycle of roof replacements, there were still many other factors to consider. Some buildings that had ample roof space were of older construction that couldn’t bear the loads of a full solar installation without significant reconstruction. “That actually has proved trickier than we thought,” Ghattas says. For example, one building that seemed a good candidate, and already had some solar panels on it, proved unable to sustain the greater weight and wind loads of a full solar installation. Structural capacity, she says, turned out to be “probably the most important” factor in this case.

The roofs on the Student Center and on the Dewey Library building were replaced in the last few years with the intention of the later addition of solar panels. And the two newer buildings were designed from the beginning with solar in mind, even though the solar panels were not part of the initial construction. “The designs were built into them to accommodate solar,” Dixon says, “so those were easy options for us because we knew the buildings were solar-ready and could support solar being integrated into their systems, both the electrical system and the structural system of the roof.”

But there were also other considerations. The Student Center is considered a historically significant building, so the installation had to be designed so that it was invisible from street level, even including a safety railing that had to be built around the solar array. But that was not a problem. “It was fine for this building,” Ghattas says, because it turned out that the geometry of the building and the roofs hid the safety railing from view below.

Each installation will connect directly to the building’s electrical system, and thus into the campus grid. The power they produce will be used in the buildings they are on, though none will be sufficient to fully power its building. Overall, the new installations, in addition to the existing ones on the MIT Sloan School of Management building (E62) and the Alumni Pool (57) and the planned array on the new Graduate Junction dorm (W87-W88), will be enough to power 5 to 10 percent of the buildings’ electric needs, and offset about 190 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, Ghattas says. This is equivalent to the electricity use of 35 homes annually.

Each building installation is expected to take just a couple of weeks. “We’re hopeful that we’re going to have everything installed and operational by the end of this calendar year,” she says.

Other buildings could be added in coming years, as their roof replacement cycles come around. With the lessons learned along the way in getting to this point, Ghattas says, “now that we have a system in place, hopefully it’s going to be much easier in the future.”

Higgins adds that “in parallel with the solar projects, we’re working on expanding electric vehicle charging stations and the electric vehicle fleet and reducing energy consumption in campus buildings.”

Besides the on-campus improvements, he says, “MIT is focused on both the local and the global.” In addition to solar installations on campus buildings, which can only mitigate a small portion of campus emissions, “large-scale aggregation partnerships are key to moving the actual market landscape for adding cleaner energy generation to power grids,” which must ultimately lead to zero emissions, he says. “We are spurring the development of new utility-grade renewable energy facilities in regions with high carbon-intensive electrical grids. These projects have an immediate and significant impact in the urgently needed decarbonization of regional power grids.”

MIT is also making more advances to accelerate renewable energy generation and electricity grid decarbonization at the local and state level. The Institute has recently concluded an agreement through the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target program that supports the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ state solar power development goals by enabling the construction of a new 5-megawatt solar energy facility on Cape Cod. The new solar energy system is integral to supporting a new net-zero emissions development that includes affordable housing, while also providing additional resiliency to the local grid.

Higgins says that other technologies, strategies, and practices are being evaluated for heating, cooling, and power for the campus, “with zero carbon emissions by 2050, utilizing cleaner energy sources.” He adds that these campus initiatives “are part of MIT’s larger Climate Project, aiming to drive progress both on campus and beyond, advancing broader partnerships, new market models, and informing approaches to climate policy.” 

Visualizing the potential impacts of a hurricane on people’s homes before it hits can help residents prepare and decide whether to evacuate.

MIT scientists have developed a method that generates satellite imagery from the future to depict how a region would look after a potential flooding event. The method combines a generative artificial intelligence model with a physics-based flood model to create realistic, birds-eye-view images of a region, showing where flooding is likely to occur given the strength of an oncoming storm.

As a test case, the team applied the method to Houston and generated satellite images depicting what certain locations around the city would look like after a storm comparable to Hurricane Harvey, which hit the region in 2017. The team compared these generated images with actual satellite images taken of the same regions after Harvey hit. They also compared AI-generated images that did not include a physics-based flood model.

The team’s physics-reinforced method generated satellite images of future flooding that were more realistic and accurate. The AI-only method, in contrast, generated images of flooding in places where flooding is not physically possible.

The team’s method is a proof-of-concept, meant to demonstrate a case in which generative AI models can generate realistic, trustworthy content when paired with a physics-based model. In order to apply the method to other regions to depict flooding from future storms, it will need to be trained on many more satellite images to learn how flooding would look in other regions.

“The idea is: One day, we could use this before a hurricane, where it provides an additional visualization layer for the public,” says Björn Lütjens, a postdoc in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, who led the research while he was a doctoral student in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro). “One of the biggest challenges is encouraging people to evacuate when they are at risk. Maybe this could be another visualization to help increase that readiness.”

To illustrate the potential of the new method, which they have dubbed the “Earth Intelligence Engine,” the team has made it available as an online resource for others to try.

The researchers report their results today in the journal IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. The study’s MIT co-authors include Brandon Leshchinskiy; Aruna Sankaranarayanan; and Dava Newman, professor of AeroAstro and director of the MIT Media Lab; along with collaborators from multiple institutions.

Generative adversarial images

The new study is an extension of the team’s efforts to apply generative AI tools to visualize future climate scenarios.

“Providing a hyper-local perspective of climate seems to be the most effective way to communicate our scientific results,” says Newman, the study’s senior author. “People relate to their own zip code, their local environment where their family and friends live. Providing local climate simulations becomes intuitive, personal, and relatable.”

For this study, the authors use a conditional generative adversarial network, or GAN, a type of machine learning method that can generate realistic images using two competing, or “adversarial,” neural networks. The first “generator” network is trained on pairs of real data, such as satellite images before and after a hurricane. The second “discriminator” network is then trained to distinguish between the real satellite imagery and the one synthesized by the first network.

Each network automatically improves its performance based on feedback from the other network. The idea, then, is that such an adversarial push and pull should ultimately produce synthetic images that are indistinguishable from the real thing. Nevertheless, GANs can still produce “hallucinations,” or factually incorrect features in an otherwise realistic image that shouldn’t be there.

“Hallucinations can mislead viewers,” says Lütjens, who began to wonder whether such hallucinations could be avoided, such that generative AI tools can be trusted to help inform people, particularly in risk-sensitive scenarios. “We were thinking: How can we use these generative AI models in a climate-impact setting, where having trusted data sources is so important?”

Flood hallucinations

In their new work, the researchers considered a risk-sensitive scenario in which generative AI is tasked with creating satellite images of future flooding that could be trustworthy enough to inform decisions of how to prepare and potentially evacuate people out of harm’s way.

Typically, policymakers can get an idea of where flooding might occur based on visualizations in the form of color-coded maps. These maps are the final product of a pipeline of physical models that usually begins with a hurricane track model, which then feeds into a wind model that simulates the pattern and strength of winds over a local region. This is combined with a flood or storm surge model that forecasts how wind might push any nearby body of water onto land. A hydraulic model then maps out where flooding will occur based on the local flood infrastructure and generates a visual, color-coded map of flood elevations over a particular region.

“The question is: Can visualizations of satellite imagery add another level to this, that is a bit more tangible and emotionally engaging than a color-coded map of reds, yellows, and blues, while still being trustworthy?” Lütjens says.

The team first tested how generative AI alone would produce satellite images of future flooding. They trained a GAN on actual satellite images taken by satellites as they passed over Houston before and after Hurricane Harvey. When they tasked the generator to produce new flood images of the same regions, they found that the images resembled typical satellite imagery, but a closer look revealed hallucinations in some images, in the form of floods where flooding should not be possible (for instance, in locations at higher elevation).

To reduce hallucinations and increase the trustworthiness of the AI-generated images, the team paired the GAN with a physics-based flood model that incorporates real, physical parameters and phenomena, such as an approaching hurricane’s trajectory, storm surge, and flood patterns. With this physics-reinforced method, the team generated satellite images around Houston that depict the same flood extent, pixel by pixel, as forecasted by the flood model.

“We show a tangible way to combine machine learning with physics for a use case that’s risk-sensitive, which requires us to analyze the complexity of Earth’s systems and project future actions and possible scenarios to keep people out of harm’s way,” Newman says. “We can’t wait to get our generative AI tools into the hands of decision-makers at the local community level, which could make a significant difference and perhaps save lives.”

The research was supported, in part, by the MIT Portugal Program, the DAF-MIT Artificial Intelligence Accelerator, NASA, and Google Cloud.

PSA International (PSA) and National University of Singapore (NUS) announced today the launch of the PSA-NUS Supply Chain Living Lab. Recognising the growing need for integrated solutions that extend beyond container handling within ports, PSA has in recent years, expanded its role as a leading global port operator to also encompass complementary services in the broader supply chain sphere. In line with its overall strategy, PSA will be supporting the initiative with funds totalling up to S$10 million.

The PSA-NUS Supply Chain Living Lab will strengthen collaboration between industry and academic expertise to address critical supply chain challenges. The Lab will provide a sandbox to foster the development of community-centric solutions for supply chain optimisation together with industry stakeholders, with a focus on enhancing agility, resilience and sustainability for supply chain operations both regionally and globally.

Mr Ong Kim Pong, Group CEO of PSA International, said, "As we navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of global trade, it has become essential for PSA Group to continually adapt and refine our business strategy. We will continue to look for new areas of expansion whilst enhancing our presence in key locations, and connecting these strategic nodes to form a cohesive and integrated network across the globe. This collaboration with NUS also marks a significant step in our journey towards strengthening PSA’s position as a leading global port operator and supply chain services provider, capable of delivering supply chain efficiency and resilience across the world.”

Professor Tan Eng Chye, NUS President, said, “The establishment of the PSA-NUS Supply Chain Living Lab marks a significant milestone in our collaborative efforts to advance supply chain innovation. This initiative exemplifies the synergy between academia and industry, leveraging our combined strengths to address complex challenges such as optimising logistical efficiency, enhancing data-driven decision-making, and integrating sustainable practices across supply chain operations. By fostering a dynamic ecosystem for research and development, we aim to drive transformative solutions that enhance the resilience and efficiency of supply chain operations, ultimately benefitting communities and economies worldwide.”

The launch of the Supply Chain Living Lab follows the recent groundbreaking of the upcoming PSA Supply Chain Hub (PSCH), which is an integral part of PSA’s strategic expansion of Singapore’s Tuas Port Ecosystem. The state-of-the-art PSCH facility is scheduled to be ready by 2027 and will seamlessly integrate with Singapore’s extensive supply chain ecosystem, offering unparalleled connectivity and supply chain synergies.

Evolution Day is observed on 24 November each year, marking the anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking work, On the Origin of Species, in 1859. This day commemorates not just a book but a seismic shift in our understanding of life — a theory that connects all living organisms in a vast, intricate web of shared ancestry.

This year, to commemorate Evolution Day, we shine the spotlight on researchers from the Department of Biological Sciences at the NUS Faculty of Science who are building on Darwin’s legacy, exploring the mechanisms of evolution and its impact on biodiversity in the region and beyond. Their work underscores the enduring relevance of evolutionary theory in addressing modern challenges, from conservation to climate change.

Learning from insects: Understanding biodiversity through reproductive evolution research

Evolution is often synonymous with the phrase ‘survival of the fittest,’ but in evolutionary biology, ‘fitness’ refers to an organism’s ability to survive, reproduce and pass on its genes to the next generation. Reproductive evolution, which focuses on how mating behaviours and reproductive strategies evolve across species, plays a crucial role in shaping population dynamics, speciation, and biodiversity.

Assistant Professor Nalini Puniamoorthy from the Department of Biological Sciences at the NUS Faculty of Science, together with her team at the Reproductive Evolution Lab (ReproLab), are exploring how sexual selection – a mechanism of natural selection – affects reproductive traits and influences population differentiation and speciation, the process by which new species emerge.

“Since reproductive processes directly influence a species’ adaptation and resilience to environmental variability, studying reproductive evolution can support biodiversity conservation by shedding light on how species evolve and adapt to changes to their habitats, especially in the face of climate change and habitat loss,” said Asst Prof Nalini.

The ReproLab studies micro- and macro-evolutionary processes of various insects: From ecosystem service providers like dung beetles, disease vectors like mosquitoes, and even to food waste recyclers like black soldier flies.

For instance, a recent study published by Asst Prof Nalini’s team in Ecology and Evolution, investigated how resource constraints affect dung beetle fitness in secondary rainforests. Dung beetles are important for nutrient recycling and forest health but are often sensitive to habitat changes and resource variations. Asst. Prof. Nalini’s team found that parental provisioning is crucial and that there was a trade-off between early offspring fitness and resource quality. This discovery documents genotype by environment interactions that are relevant for understanding dung beetle ecology in the face of climatic and environmental changes.

Seeking sustainable solutions to challenges

The ReproLab also investigates the interactions between insects and their bacterial symbionts, like gut microbes in black soldier flies that aid in breaking down food waste as well as the reproductive bacteria Wolbachia in mosquitoes. Their study on Aedes albopictus documented that the dispersal of this secondary dengue vector was not limited to green spaces, and that urban and forest populations of Ae. albopictus are naturally infected with more than one strain of Wolbachia. “Untangling these interactions has implications for vector management and combating disease transmission in a city with heterogenous landscapes like Singapore,” explained Asst Prof Nalini.

Shaping biodiversity of tropical ecosystems: The role of fruit-eating animals

In tropical ecosystems, plant-frugivore interactions — where animals help disperse seeds of fruiting plants — play a critical role in maintaining biodiversity. Approximately 90 per cent of woody plant species in tropical forests rely on animals to disperse their seeds. Assistant Professor Lim Jun Ying and his team from the NUS Department of Biological Sciences are investigating how these interactions shape plant biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics. This is especially pertinent as human activities such as habitat loss and hunting are threatening these crucial relationships.

“The loss of fruit-eating animals or frugivores can disrupt plant populations, preventing them from migrating to new areas in response to climate change. Understanding how plant-frugivore interactions evolve is important for quantifying the long-term effects of human activities on tropical ecosystems,” said Asst Prof Lim.

In a recent study published in Global Ecology and Conservation, Asst Prof Lim and his team studied large-bodied birds known as hornbills, which are essential for dispersing large-fruited plants. Many of these birds are under threat from habitat loss and hunting. As the gapes – mouth-openings – of these hornbills are larger than most birds, plants with large fruits and seeds depend on them for seed dispersal.

Asst Prof Lim noted, “Evolution in fruits is shaped by a complex web of interactions with various animals and other factors, suggesting that co-evolution between plants and frugivores must be understood at a community level. This broader perspective is essential for grasping the full complexity of ecological evolution in tropical forests and helping to conserve their biodiversity.”

Understanding fungi: From a billion-year evolutionary journey to addressing environmental challenges

Fungi represent one of the most diverse and ancient groups of organisms on Earth, with an evolutionary history spanning over a billion years. Despite their widespread presence and ecological importance, our understanding of fungal diversity is still limited.

“Less than 10 per cent of the estimated fungal diversity has been documented. The challenge lies in the fact that many fungi remain microscopic throughout their life stages, and a vast majority cannot be cultured in laboratories, hindering direct observation and experimentation,” said Assistant Professor Chang Ying from the NUS Department of Biological Sciences.

At Asst Prof Chang’s lab, her team is dedicated to finding the hidden diversity of fungi, with a focus on marine and coastal environments. Their research tackles two key aspects of fungal ecology: reconstructing the evolutionary history of fungal adaptations using genomic tools, and exploring fungal diversity in natural habitats through metagenomics. By studying the genetic, structural, and ecological traits of existing fungal species, Asst Prof Chang and her team are able to infer a fungi’s common ancestor and understand the traits that allowed ancestral fungi to diversify and adapt to a range of ecological and environmental conditions.

An ongoing project by Asst Prof Chang and her team, in collaboration with the One Thousand Fungal Genomes (1KFG) consortium, investigates the evolution of digestive enzymes across the fungal kingdom. This study could help to predict the ecological capabilities of unknown or newly discovered fungi, as well as entire fungal communities.

“Insights from this research also has practical applications, particularly in the field of bioremediation, where fungi are increasingly valued for their potential to break down environmental pollutants,” added Asst Prof Chang.

By analysing the distribution of hydrocarbon-degrading enzymes across a large set of fungal genomes and mapping their evolutionary trajectories, NUS researchers could identify fungal groups that are especially suited to utilising petroleum hydrocarbons as nutrient sources, making them strong candidates for bioremediation strategies.

The state-of-the-art indoor track facility is the first of its kind in Philadelphia.

MIT is co-leading an effort to enable the development of two new large-scale renewable energy projects in regions with carbon-intensive electrical grids: Big Elm Solar in Bell County, Texas, came online this year, and the Bowman Wind Project in Bowman County, North Dakota, is expected to be operational in 2026. Together, they will add a combined 408 megawatts (MW) of new renewable energy capacity to the power grid. This work is a critical part of MIT’s strategy to achieve its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2026.

The Consortium for Climate Solutions, which includes MIT and 10 other Massachusetts organizations, seeks to eliminate close to 1 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year — more than five times the annual direct emissions from MIT’s campus — by committing to purchase an estimated 1.3-million-megawatt hours of new solar and wind electricity generation annually.

“MIT has mobilized on multiple fronts to expedite solutions to climate change,” says Glen Shor, executive vice president and treasurer. “Catalyzing these large-scale renewable projects is an important part of our comprehensive efforts to reduce carbon emissions from generating energy. We are pleased to work in partnership with other local enterprises and organizations to amplify the impact we could achieve individually.”

The two new projects complement MIT’s existing 25-year power purchase agreement established with Summit Farms in 2016, which enabled the construction of a roughly 650-acre, 60 MW solar farm on farmland in North Carolina, leading to the early retirement of a coal-fired plant nearby. Its success has inspired other institutions to implement similar aggregation models.

A collective approach to enable global impact

MIT, Harvard University, and Mass General Brigham formed the consortium in 2020 to provide a structure to accelerate global emissions reductions through the development of large-scale renewable energy projects — accelerating and expanding the impact of each institution’s greenhouse gas reduction initiatives. As the project’s anchors, they collectively procured the largest volume of energy through the aggregation.  

The consortium engaged with PowerOptions, a nonprofit energy-buying consortium, which offered its members the opportunity to participate in the projects. The City of Cambridge, Beth Israel Lahey, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Tufts University, the Mass Convention Center Authority, the Museum of Fine Arts, and GBH later joined the consortium through PowerOptions. 
 
The consortium vetted over 125 potential projects against its rigorous project evaluation criteria. With faculty and MIT stakeholder input on a short list of the highest-ranking projects, it ultimately chose Bowman Wind and Big Elm Solar. Collectively, these two projects will achieve large greenhouse gas emissions reductions in two of the most carbon-intensive electrical grid regions in the United States and create clean energy generation sources to reduce negative health impacts.

“Enabling these projects in regions where the grids are most carbon-intensive allows them to have the greatest impact. We anticipate these projects will prevent two times more emissions per unit of generated electricity than would a similar-scale project in New England,” explains Vice President for Campus Services and Stewardship Joe Higgins.

By all consortium institutions making significant 15-to-20-year financial commitments to buy electricity, the developer was able to obtain critical external project financing to build the projects. Owned and operated by Apex Clean Energy, the projects will add new renewable electricity to the grid equivalent to powering 130,000 households annually, displacing over 950,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year from highly carbon-intensive power plants in the region. 

Complementary decarbonization work underway 

In addition to investing in offsite renewable energy projects, many consortium members have developed strategies to reduce and eliminate their own direct emissions. At MIT, accomplishing this requires transformative change in how energy is generated, distributed, and used on campus. Efforts underway include the installation of solar panels on campus rooftops that will increase renewable energy generation four-fold by 2026; continuing to transition our heat distribution infrastructure from steam-based to hot water-based; utilizing design and construction that minimizes emissions and increases energy efficiency; employing AI-enabled sensors to optimize temperature set points and reduce energy use in buildings; and converting MIT’s vehicle fleet to all-electric vehicles while adding more electric car charging stations.

The Institute has also upgraded the Central Utilities Plant, which uses advanced co-generation technology to produce power that is up to 20 percent less carbon-intensive than that from the regional power grid. MIT is charting the course toward a next-generation district energy system, with a comprehensive planning initiative to revolutionize its campus energy infrastructure. The effort is exploring leading-edge technology, including industrial-scale heat pumps, geothermal exchange, micro-reactors, bio-based fuels, and green hydrogen derived from renewable sources as solutions to achieve full decarbonization of campus operations by 2050.

“At MIT, we are focused on decarbonizing our own campus as well as the role we can play in solving climate at the largest of scales, including supporting a cleaner grid in line with the call to triple renewables globally by 2030. By enabling these large-scale renewable projects, we can have an immediate and significant impact of reducing emissions through the urgently needed decarbonization of regional power grids,” says Julie Newman, MIT’s director of sustainability.  

The National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Science (NUS Science) concluded a year of celebratory events marking its 95th Anniversary with a Charity Golf event, raising a record of over S$1.2 million for its 95th Anniversary Bursary Fund - the largest amount raised in the history of the NUS Charity Golf series since 2012.

The Bursary Fund will support over 40 bursaries each year, starting from 2026. The bursaries will benefit undergraduates at the Faculty who are facing financial challenges, providing them with the resources they need to focus on their studies, pursue their passions and achieve their academic and professional aspirations.

In partnership with the NUS Alumni Student Advancement Committee, benefactors who contributed S$25,000 or more to the Bursary Fund had the opportunity to sub-name their bursaries under the NUS Science 95^th Anniversary Bursary Fund. Professors rallied former PhD students and members of their research groups in NUS Science to pool donations, resulting in bursaries sub-named after these groups. Former students, colleagues and friends contributed collectively to honour professors, both past and present, while corporate partners and individual benefactors also made independent contributions to this initiative. The Department of Physics, for example, led efforts to gather contributions from colleagues, alumni and friends to sub-name a bursary in honour of Emeritus Professor Bernard Tan Tiong Gie, the longest serving Dean of Science (1985-1997).

Making the announcement at the Faculty’s 95th Anniversary Gala Dinner on 22 November 2024, Dean of NUS Science Professor Sun Yeneng said, “I am deeply grateful for the support and generosity of our community. Your collective commitment will make a lasting impact on the lives of our students, giving them the opportunity to realise their full potential, regardless of their circumstances.”  

95 years of excellence in science education and research

NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye, who was the Guest-of-Honour at the Gala Dinner, commended the Faculty’s progress and achievements. “Science research in Singapore started off small and unknown in the academic research space, but we have since made immense and very visible progress. From fundamental science, such as the development of advanced materials to translational innovations like nature-based climate solutions, the Faculty has been timely and relevant in addressing pressing challenges of the day.”

He added, “We have built up global credibility and repute for our research; this has enabled us to draw top minds from across the world to build their careers and research aspirations here.”

At the Gala Dinner, the Faculty also presented awards to 16 Science alumni from industries such as healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, technology, sustainability-related sectors, data analytics and Artificial Intelligence, to name a few. Prof Tan presented the Distinguished Science Alumni Award to three alumni who have distinguished themselves in national leadership, service, research excellence, or the betterment and promotion of science.

Another 13 alumni received the Outstanding Science Alumni Award (OSA) from Prof Sun. The OSA recognised the recipients’ leadership and contributions to their professions, industries and disciplines, service to the nation or community, entrepreneurship, research, as well as other noteworthy endeavours.

“Our students do not just excel academically - their accomplishments extend beyond the classroom in service of diverse communities. Many of them go on to pursue distinguished careers; some have founded successful enterprises, contributing to society and making meaningful advancements in fields ranging from environmental sustainability to technology and healthcare,” lauded Prof Tan.

Year-long celebration

The Gala Dinner was the culminating event in a series of specially-curated activities celebrating the Faculty of Science’s 95th Anniversary this year.  These other events included the Achieving Gender Diversity in STEM conference in March 2024, which highlighted leadership in STEM and insights from our female alumni; a Homecoming for Alumni programme at both Bukit Timah and Kent Ridge Campuses in May 2024; the launch of a mural wall to commemorate the former Deans of Science in September 2024, and the Faculty of Science Symposium in September 2024 where researchers, educators, alumni and entrepreneurs, as well as students, came together to share their experiences in scientific developments, educational advancements, career journeys and student advocacy respectively.

• Channel 5 News, 21 November 2024
• 8world Online, 21 November 2024
• Lianhe Zaobao, 22 November 2024, Singapore, p10
• CNA, 22 November 2024

By Dr Azhar Ibrahim Alwee, a Senior Lecturer at the Dept of Malay Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at NUS

• Berita Harian, 21 November 2024, p6

• The Straits Times, 20 November 2024, Life, pC4

By Prof Teo Yik Ying, Vice President for Global Health and Dean of the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health

• The Straits Times, 20 November 2024, Opinion, pB1-B2
• The Straits Times, 22 November 2024, Forum, pB5

By Ms Humaira Safiya Mohd Helmi, student from the Dept of Political Science and Dept of Economics at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in NUS, and Mr Amirul Daniez, student in NTU

• Berita Harian, 20 November 2024, p11

• Lianhe Zaobao, 16 November 2024, Opinion, p18

• Berita Harian, 16 November 2024, p7

• Berita Harian, 16 November 2024, p10

• Berita Harian Online, 16 November 2024
• Suria News Online, 16 November 2024

Genomics-driven cancer prevention, testing and treatment strategies will be at the forefront of a new joint venture between the University of Melbourne and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (Peter Mac), announced in Melbourne today.

Fields ranging from robotics to medicine to political science are attempting to train AI systems to make meaningful decisions of all kinds. For example, using an AI system to intelligently control traffic in a congested city could help motorists reach their destinations faster, while improving safety or sustainability.

Unfortunately, teaching an AI system to make good decisions is no easy task.

Reinforcement learning models, which underlie these AI decision-making systems, still often fail when faced with even small variations in the tasks they are trained to perform. In the case of traffic, a model might struggle to control a set of intersections with different speed limits, numbers of lanes, or traffic patterns.

To boost the reliability of reinforcement learning models for complex tasks with variability, MIT researchers have introduced a more efficient algorithm for training them.

The algorithm strategically selects the best tasks for training an AI agent so it can effectively perform all tasks in a collection of related tasks. In the case of traffic signal control, each task could be one intersection in a task space that includes all intersections in the city.

By focusing on a smaller number of intersections that contribute the most to the algorithm’s overall effectiveness, this method maximizes performance while keeping the training cost low.

The researchers found that their technique was between five and 50 times more efficient than standard approaches on an array of simulated tasks. This gain in efficiency helps the algorithm learn a better solution in a faster manner, ultimately improving the performance of the AI agent.

“We were able to see incredible performance improvements, with a very simple algorithm, by thinking outside the box. An algorithm that is not very complicated stands a better chance of being adopted by the community because it is easier to implement and easier for others to understand,” says senior author Cathy Wu, the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), and a member of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS).

She is joined on the paper by lead author Jung-Hoon Cho, a CEE graduate student; Vindula Jayawardana, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS); and Sirui Li, an IDSS graduate student. The research will be presented at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems.

Finding a middle ground

To train an algorithm to control traffic lights at many intersections in a city, an engineer would typically choose between two main approaches. She can train one algorithm for each intersection independently, using only that intersection’s data, or train a larger algorithm using data from all intersections and then apply it to each one.

But each approach comes with its share of downsides. Training a separate algorithm for each task (such as a given intersection) is a time-consuming process that requires an enormous amount of data and computation, while training one algorithm for all tasks often leads to subpar performance.

Wu and her collaborators sought a sweet spot between these two approaches.

For their method, they choose a subset of tasks and train one algorithm for each task independently. Importantly, they strategically select individual tasks which are most likely to improve the algorithm’s overall performance on all tasks.

They leverage a common trick from the reinforcement learning field called zero-shot transfer learning, in which an already trained model is applied to a new task without being further trained. With transfer learning, the model often performs remarkably well on the new neighbor task.

“We know it would be ideal to train on all the tasks, but we wondered if we could get away with training on a subset of those tasks, apply the result to all the tasks, and still see a performance increase,” Wu says.

To identify which tasks they should select to maximize expected performance, the researchers developed an algorithm called Model-Based Transfer Learning (MBTL).

The MBTL algorithm has two pieces. For one, it models how well each algorithm would perform if it were trained independently on one task. Then it models how much each algorithm’s performance would degrade if it were transferred to each other task, a concept known as generalization performance.

Explicitly modeling generalization performance allows MBTL to estimate the value of training on a new task.

MBTL does this sequentially, choosing the task which leads to the highest performance gain first, then selecting additional tasks that provide the biggest subsequent marginal improvements to overall performance.

Since MBTL only focuses on the most promising tasks, it can dramatically improve the efficiency of the training process.

Reducing training costs

When the researchers tested this technique on simulated tasks, including controlling traffic signals, managing real-time speed advisories, and executing several classic control tasks, it was five to 50 times more efficient than other methods.

This means they could arrive at the same solution by training on far less data. For instance, with a 50x efficiency boost, the MBTL algorithm could train on just two tasks and achieve the same performance as a standard method which uses data from 100 tasks.

“From the perspective of the two main approaches, that means data from the other 98 tasks was not necessary or that training on all 100 tasks is confusing to the algorithm, so the performance ends up worse than ours,” Wu says.

With MBTL, adding even a small amount of additional training time could lead to much better performance.

In the future, the researchers plan to design MBTL algorithms that can extend to more complex problems, such as high-dimensional task spaces. They are also interested in applying their approach to real-world problems, especially in next-generation mobility systems.

The research is funded, in part, by a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Kwanjeong Educational Foundation PhD Scholarship Program, and an Amazon Robotics PhD Fellowship.

Nestled against the lush backdrop of Kent Ridge Forest, Ridge View Residential College (RVRC) is the University’s first and only residential college located outside NUS University Town. Founded on the integrated themes of sustainability and workplace readiness, the College started as a one-year living-learning programme in 2014, expanding into a two-year programme in 2017 and evolving further in 2021 to align with the enhanced NUS General Education Curriculum.

This year, RVRC celebrates its 10th anniversary, a milestone that has seen learning at the residential college transcend the boundaries of the classroom, and its students playing an active role in contributing towards sustainability efforts in NUS and the community.

In line with its sustainability theme, many of the courses offered at RVRC incorporate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, allowing students to explore sustainability initiatives that help shape a future that is more sustainable and equitable for all. This is done through a multifaceted learning approach that focuses on experiential outdoor learning and collaboration with industry partners. In line with its workplace readiness theme, students are also encouraged to participate in meaningful college activities beyond coursework that diversify their interests and skillsets to help develop them into better versions of their current selves.

“Place, Programme, and People are the elements that make for memorable university experiences, and these are the elements that make for a memorable RV10,” said RVRC College Master Associate Professor Sim Tick Ngee, outlining the focus of the year-long celebration in his congratulatory message.

As part of RV10, the College’s initiative to encapsulate the anniversary celebrations, a series of commemorative events were held to strengthen the college culture and collective sense of community among its students, alumni, and staff. Here are three of the events that showcased the different but integrated aspects of life at RVRC – namely academic, student and residential life.

RVRC Symposium: Living and learning for a shared future – the RVRC way

For the first time this year, students led the planning and organising of the annual RVRC Symposium held on 24 February 2024. Some 145 participants comprising students, educators and community partners attended the Symposium which showcased the best of student and alumni achievements through panel discussions, oral presentations, and poster sessions.

Guest-of-Honour Associate Professor Adrian Loo from the NUS Department of Biological Sciences shared about the importance of education and community stewardship for youth, drawing on his extensive experience in his previous role as National Parks Board’s Group Director for Wildlife Management and Senior Director for Community Projects. Participants also gleaned insights from RVRC alumnus, Founder and CEO of Hatch Mr Victor Zhu (Science '20), who shared about his journey in building his start-up with a social mission of providing digital skills and employability programmes whilst still a student at RVRC.

The day’s programme was segmented into three key themes, namely Edu-venture, Adventure, and Venturing Beyond. Edu-venture showcased RVRC’s approach towards fostering a learning ecosystem that has addressed societal and environmental challenges, as well as student projects on real-world issues. Adventure highlighted the importance of various co-curricular and student life activities, which has helped hone students’ soft skills and provided them an avenue to give back to society. Lastly, Venturing Beyond challenged students to build meaningful initiatives that go beyond the walls of the College and beyond their time at NUS, encouraging them to champion lasting environmental and societal changes through innovative means. 

Co-Chair of the Symposium’s organising committee and RVRC Senior Jason Qiu, a Year 4 undergraduate from the School of Computing, said, “It was the insightful questions posed during the presentations along with the meaningful tea break discussions that brought home the value of the engagement for the RVRC community which truly represented the vibrant learning spirit that the College embodies.”

Gala Dinner: Celebrating a decade of shared memories, experiences and achievements

The RVRC 10th Anniversary Gala Dinner on 30 August 2024 saw past and present members of the College celebrate the journey that has shaped RVRC into the unique, dynamic community it is today.

The evening began with a commemorative speech by College Master Assoc Prof Sim, who reflected on the College's decade of achievements. RVRC Rector Dr Noeleen Heyzer and RVRC’s first Director of Studies Associate Professor Lee Kooi Cheng shared about the College's indelible impact over the years while founding RVRC College Master Professor Adekunle Adeyeye recounted the strong foundation upon which the college was built, in a special video message.

Guests were also treated to a night of engaging performances, including song items by RVRC’s Jukebox and the winners of the RV10 songwriting competition, as well as an electrifying dance performance by the NUS Dance Ensemble.

A highlight at the gala dinner was the commemorative video created by RVRC students which showcased RVRC’s key milestones since its inception, evoking a deep sense of nostalgia amongst alumni, faculty and staff, both past and present, who had an enjoyable time reconnecting and reminiscing about the pivotal moments that defined their time at the College.

RVRC alumnus Zhang Xiangyu Oliver (Business ‘24), said, “It was great to reconnect with the people who made my four-year journey in RVRC memorable, and celebrate together the countless milestones of the college since inception. I’m confident that RVRC will continue to inspire the next generation in the upcoming decade and beyond!”

RVRC Day: Building bridges, strengthening bonds

Apart from sustainability, the RVRC community is also passionate about giving back to society, a cornerstone of NUS' ethos. The theme of RVRC Day – Building Bridges, Strengthening Bonds – underscored the importance of community building, not just amongst the RVRC community of students and staff, but just as importantly, with the wider community and the less privileged.

In the early morning hours of 26 October 2024, the RVRC community gathered at the Harbourfront area for Walk for Rice, a long-running signature event at RVRC to support vulnerable families. In partnership with a charity organisation, for every 300 meters walked, food donations were made to support vulnerable families, turning each step into a meaningful act of kindness. With the support of 52 RVRC students and staff, a total of 520 kilometres were clocked, making possible a donation of 1,733 packets of rice and oatmeal.

Following the charity walk, the event continued with a second segment focused on community engagement. Titled OutRidge, this initiative aimed to raise awareness for persons with disabilities (PWDs), foster inclusivity and inspire participants to take active steps toward building a more inclusive society. In addition to having the opportunity to interact with PWDs on their lived experiences and challenges, the event held at the College also featured a fireside chat with two invited speakers – Year 4 NUS student Kimberly Quek, a Deaflympic athlete who won numerous medals at international bowling competitions, and Joan Hung, a visually impaired para athlete with Team Singapore.

Additionally, participants had the opportunity to engage in interactive games at several informative booths designed by RVRC students to raise awareness about the daily challenges faced by PWDs. They also lent their support through their patronage of the food stalls set up by social enterprises that advocate for the PWD community.

RVRC Senior and Year 3 Computing undergraduate Soh Zheng Yang, Marcus, reflected, “I found the fireside chat to be eye-opening, especially when the two speakers shared about how they strive to overcome the challenges they face in pursuing their dreams. The interactive booths made me realise how adaptable PWDs have to be, to overcome the limitations of living in a society that does not primarily cater to their special needs or circumstances. I was happy to see the RVRC community come together to empower PWDs through active participation and enhanced awareness.”

As the celebrations come to a close, College Master Assoc Prof Sim, said, “The conclusion of the year-long activities held in conjunction with RV10 has brought a renewed understanding of what has shaped the College into what it is today. With this reflection comes a strong sense of optimism for the future—one where the College continues to evolve, striving towards becoming a better place that offers a more robust RVRC programme with a more united and inclusive RVRC community.”

University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Professor Duncan Maskell has announced the appointment of Professor Muthupandian Ashokkumar as Director of the Melbourne Global Centre in Delhi.

The Irish philosopher George Berkely, best known for his theory of immaterialism, once famously mused, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

What about AI-generated trees? They probably wouldn’t make a sound, but they will be critical nonetheless for applications such as adaptation of urban flora to climate change. To that end, the novel “Tree-D Fusion” system developed by researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Google, and Purdue University merges AI and tree-growth models with Google's Auto Arborist data to create accurate 3D models of existing urban trees. The project has produced the first-ever large-scale database of 600,000 environmentally aware, simulation-ready tree models across North America.

“We’re bridging decades of forestry science with modern AI capabilities,” says Sara Beery, MIT electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) assistant professor, MIT CSAIL principal investigator, and a co-author on a new paper about Tree-D Fusion. “This allows us to not just identify trees in cities, but to predict how they’ll grow and impact their surroundings over time. We’re not ignoring the past 30 years of work in understanding how to build these 3D synthetic models; instead, we’re using AI to make this existing knowledge more useful across a broader set of individual trees in cities around North America, and eventually the globe.”

Tree-D Fusion builds on previous urban forest monitoring efforts that used Google Street View data, but branches it forward by generating complete 3D models from single images. While earlier attempts at tree modeling were limited to specific neighborhoods, or struggled with accuracy at scale, Tree-D Fusion can create detailed models that include typically hidden features, such as the back side of trees that aren’t visible in street-view photos.

The technology’s practical applications extend far beyond mere observation. City planners could use Tree-D Fusion to one day peer into the future, anticipating where growing branches might tangle with power lines, or identifying neighborhoods where strategic tree placement could maximize cooling effects and air quality improvements. These predictive capabilities, the team says, could change urban forest management from reactive maintenance to proactive planning.

A tree grows in Brooklyn (and many other places)

The researchers took a hybrid approach to their method, using deep learning to create a 3D envelope of each tree’s shape, then using traditional procedural models to simulate realistic branch and leaf patterns based on the tree’s genus. This combo helped the model predict how trees would grow under different environmental conditions and climate scenarios, such as different possible local temperatures and varying access to groundwater.

Now, as cities worldwide grapple with rising temperatures, this research offers a new window into the future of urban forests. In a collaboration with MIT’s Senseable City Lab, the Purdue University and Google team is embarking on a global study that re-imagines trees as living climate shields. Their digital modeling system captures the intricate dance of shade patterns throughout the seasons, revealing how strategic urban forestry could hopefully change sweltering city blocks into more naturally cooled neighborhoods.

“Every time a street mapping vehicle passes through a city now, we’re not just taking snapshots — we’re watching these urban forests evolve in real-time,” says Beery. “This continuous monitoring creates a living digital forest that mirrors its physical counterpart, offering cities a powerful lens to observe how environmental stresses shape tree health and growth patterns across their urban landscape.”

AI-based tree modeling has emerged as an ally in the quest for environmental justice: By mapping urban tree canopy in unprecedented detail, a sister project from the Google AI for Nature team has helped uncover disparities in green space access across different socioeconomic areas. “We’re not just studying urban forests — we’re trying to cultivate more equity,” says Beery. The team is now working closely with ecologists and tree health experts to refine these models, ensuring that as cities expand their green canopies, the benefits branch out to all residents equally.

It’s a breeze

While Tree-D fusion marks some major “growth” in the field, trees can be uniquely challenging for computer vision systems. Unlike the rigid structures of buildings or vehicles that current 3D modeling techniques handle well, trees are nature’s shape-shifters — swaying in the wind, interweaving branches with neighbors, and constantly changing their form as they grow. The Tree-D fusion models are “simulation-ready” in that they can estimate the shape of the trees in the future, depending on the environmental conditions.

“What makes this work exciting is how it pushes us to rethink fundamental assumptions in computer vision,” says Beery. “While 3D scene understanding techniques like photogrammetry or NeRF [neural radiance fields] excel at capturing static objects, trees demand new approaches that can account for their dynamic nature, where even a gentle breeze can dramatically alter their structure from moment to moment.”

The team’s approach of creating rough structural envelopes that approximate each tree’s form has proven remarkably effective, but certain issues remain unsolved. Perhaps the most vexing is the “entangled tree problem;” when neighboring trees grow into each other, their intertwined branches create a puzzle that no current AI system can fully unravel.

The scientists see their dataset as a springboard for future innovations in computer vision, and they’re already exploring applications beyond street view imagery, looking to extend their approach to platforms like iNaturalist and wildlife camera traps.

“This marks just the beginning for Tree-D Fusion,” says Jae Joong Lee, a Purdue University PhD student who developed, implemented and deployed the Tree-D-Fusion algorithm. “Together with my collaborators, I envision expanding the platform’s capabilities to a planetary scale. Our goal is to use AI-driven insights in service of natural ecosystems — supporting biodiversity, promoting global sustainability, and ultimately, benefiting the health of our entire planet.”

Beery and Lee’s co-authors are Jonathan Huang, Scaled Foundations head of AI (formerly of Google); and four others from Purdue University: PhD students Jae Joong Lee and Bosheng Li, Professor and Dean's Chair of Remote Sensing Songlin Fei, Assistant Professor Raymond Yeh, and Professor and Associate Head of Computer Science Bedrich Benes. Their work is based on efforts supported by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service and is directly supported by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The researchers presented their findings at the European Conference on Computer Vision this month. 

The Irish philosopher George Berkely, best known for his theory of immaterialism, once famously mused, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

What about AI-generated trees? They probably wouldn’t make a sound, but they will be critical nonetheless for applications such as adaptation of urban flora to climate change. To that end, the novel “Tree-D Fusion” system developed by researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Google, and Purdue University merges AI and tree-growth models with Google's Auto Arborist data to create accurate 3D models of existing urban trees. The project has produced the first-ever large-scale database of 600,000 environmentally aware, simulation-ready tree models across North America.

“We’re bridging decades of forestry science with modern AI capabilities,” says Sara Beery, MIT electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) assistant professor, MIT CSAIL principal investigator, and a co-author on a new paper about Tree-D Fusion. “This allows us to not just identify trees in cities, but to predict how they’ll grow and impact their surroundings over time. We’re not ignoring the past 30 years of work in understanding how to build these 3D synthetic models; instead, we’re using AI to make this existing knowledge more useful across a broader set of individual trees in cities around North America, and eventually the globe.”

Tree-D Fusion builds on previous urban forest monitoring efforts that used Google Street View data, but branches it forward by generating complete 3D models from single images. While earlier attempts at tree modeling were limited to specific neighborhoods, or struggled with accuracy at scale, Tree-D Fusion can create detailed models that include typically hidden features, such as the back side of trees that aren’t visible in street-view photos.

The technology’s practical applications extend far beyond mere observation. City planners could use Tree-D Fusion to one day peer into the future, anticipating where growing branches might tangle with power lines, or identifying neighborhoods where strategic tree placement could maximize cooling effects and air quality improvements. These predictive capabilities, the team says, could change urban forest management from reactive maintenance to proactive planning.

A tree grows in Brooklyn (and many other places)

The researchers took a hybrid approach to their method, using deep learning to create a 3D envelope of each tree’s shape, then using traditional procedural models to simulate realistic branch and leaf patterns based on the tree’s genus. This combo helped the model predict how trees would grow under different environmental conditions and climate scenarios, such as different possible local temperatures and varying access to groundwater.

Now, as cities worldwide grapple with rising temperatures, this research offers a new window into the future of urban forests. In a collaboration with MIT’s Senseable City Lab, the Purdue University and Google team is embarking on a global study that re-imagines trees as living climate shields. Their digital modeling system captures the intricate dance of shade patterns throughout the seasons, revealing how strategic urban forestry could hopefully change sweltering city blocks into more naturally cooled neighborhoods.

“Every time a street mapping vehicle passes through a city now, we’re not just taking snapshots — we’re watching these urban forests evolve in real-time,” says Beery. “This continuous monitoring creates a living digital forest that mirrors its physical counterpart, offering cities a powerful lens to observe how environmental stresses shape tree health and growth patterns across their urban landscape.”

AI-based tree modeling has emerged as an ally in the quest for environmental justice: By mapping urban tree canopy in unprecedented detail, a sister project from the Google AI for Nature team has helped uncover disparities in green space access across different socioeconomic areas. “We’re not just studying urban forests — we’re trying to cultivate more equity,” says Beery. The team is now working closely with ecologists and tree health experts to refine these models, ensuring that as cities expand their green canopies, the benefits branch out to all residents equally.

It’s a breeze

While Tree-D fusion marks some major “growth” in the field, trees can be uniquely challenging for computer vision systems. Unlike the rigid structures of buildings or vehicles that current 3D modeling techniques handle well, trees are nature’s shape-shifters — swaying in the wind, interweaving branches with neighbors, and constantly changing their form as they grow. The Tree-D fusion models are “simulation-ready” in that they can estimate the shape of the trees in the future, depending on the environmental conditions.

“What makes this work exciting is how it pushes us to rethink fundamental assumptions in computer vision,” says Beery. “While 3D scene understanding techniques like photogrammetry or NeRF [neural radiance fields] excel at capturing static objects, trees demand new approaches that can account for their dynamic nature, where even a gentle breeze can dramatically alter their structure from moment to moment.”

The team’s approach of creating rough structural envelopes that approximate each tree’s form has proven remarkably effective, but certain issues remain unsolved. Perhaps the most vexing is the “entangled tree problem;” when neighboring trees grow into each other, their intertwined branches create a puzzle that no current AI system can fully unravel.

The scientists see their dataset as a springboard for future innovations in computer vision, and they’re already exploring applications beyond street view imagery, looking to extend their approach to platforms like iNaturalist and wildlife camera traps.

“This marks just the beginning for Tree-D Fusion,” says Jae Joong Lee, a Purdue University PhD student who developed, implemented and deployed the Tree-D-Fusion algorithm. “Together with my collaborators, I envision expanding the platform’s capabilities to a planetary scale. Our goal is to use AI-driven insights in service of natural ecosystems — supporting biodiversity, promoting global sustainability, and ultimately, benefiting the health of our entire planet.”

Beery and Lee’s co-authors are Jonathan Huang, Scaled Foundations head of AI (formerly of Google); and four others from Purdue University: PhD students Jae Joong Lee and Bosheng Li, Professor and Dean's Chair of Remote Sensing Songlin Fei, Assistant Professor Raymond Yeh, and Professor and Associate Head of Computer Science Bedrich Benes. Their work is based on efforts supported by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service and is directly supported by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The researchers presented their findings at the European Conference on Computer Vision this month. 

Penn’s Climate and Sustainability Action Plan 4.0 outlines sustainability goals for fiscal year 2025-29 and lays out Penn’s path toward carbon neutrality by 2042.

The plan outlines a sweeping strategy to become the nation’s most eco-friendly health care organization.

Will Chan, a Thouron Scholar and Ph.D. candidate in theoretical physics, is also an advocate for building Asian communities.