NUS Medicine alumnus and Vice-Dean for Academic Medicine, Associate Professor Chong Yap Seng, will be the 17th Dean of the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, when he succeeds Associate Professor Yeoh Khay Guan on 1 January 2019.
Assoc Prof Yeoh, who has led the School since 2011, will be assuming full-time duties as the Deputy Chief Executive of the National University Health System, of which the School is a founding institution.
A Senior Consultant in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the National University Hospital, Assoc Prof Chong is also the Executive Director of the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS) under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). He headed the Medical Education Unit of the School from 2004 to 2014, and has been Vice-Dean (Academic Medicine) since 2015. He has also been Director of the A*STAR-NUS Singapore Centre for Nutritional Sciences, Metabolic Diseases, and Human Development since 2014, and the Executive Director of SICS since 2015.
NUS President, Professor Tan Eng Chye, said, “We are delighted with the appointment of Associate Professor Chong Yap Seng as the next Dean of NUS Medicine.
“He is an outstanding and multiple award-winning clinician-researcher, educator and administrator, and a home-grown talent. He has a clear vision and strategy for further deepening the impact of the region’s leading medical school. Yap Seng deeply appreciates the significant role our medical school has played in the island’s healthcare landscape since 1905, and its mission of nurturing future generations of doctors and nurses for the nation. We entrust NUS Medicine to Yap Seng with great confidence.”
Led ground-breaking research in fetal growth and early child development
A respected scholar and researcher in fetal growth and early development, and an eminent medical professional well-known among both the international and local medical and academic community, Assoc Prof Chong has received numerous awards in teaching, research and clinical service. Last year, he was named the National Outstanding Clinician Scientist at the Singapore Ministry of Health’s National Medical Excellence Awards. He was also conferred the Mentoring, Innovation and Leadership in Educational Scholarship Award (2015) at the Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference, NUS.
The Dean Designate has an impressive research track record, particularly in winning big grants, and has received more than S$100 million in research grant funding to date. He is the Lead Principal Investigator of the National Medical Research Council’s Metabolic Translational and Clinical Research Flagship Programme, with a S$25 million grant awarded in 2009 and renewed in 2014. He is also the Co-Investigator of several large A*STAR Strategic Positioning Fund and Industry Alignment Fund-Pre-positioning grants, as well as being the Lead Principal Investigator of the Growing Up in Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) study, Singapore’s largest and most comprehensive birth cohort research effort.
“I am deeply honoured to be given the privilege of leading Singapore’s oldest and biggest medical school. Like the majority of doctors in Singapore, I am an alumnus and am aware of the central role the School plays in healthcare. Building on the work of my illustrious predecessors, I will do my best to ensure that the School continues improving the health and lives of Singaporeans through excellence in education, research and innovation, and a full-hearted commitment to service.”
Prof Tan Eng Chye also expressed his heartfelt thanks to out-going Dean, Assoc Prof Yeoh Khay Guan, for his stellar leadership of NUS Medicine. “Khay Guan, who is also a Medicine alumnus, has led the School with great distinction and care, while concurrently blazing a trail as an outstanding clinician-investigator and gastroenterologist and Deputy Chief Executive of the National University Health System.”