Dr Koh Ming Joo is the first President’s Assistant Professor who joined the Department. He graduated from Nanyang Technological University (Chemistry, First Class Hons) in 2012 before heading to Boston College for his PhD studies, under the supervision of eminent organometallic chemists Prof Amir Hoveyda and Prof Richard Schrock (Nobel Prize ’05).

A recipient of several graduate awards,  Dr Koh has co-authored several research articles in Nature and Science as a young researcher. He was one of the recipients of the NUS Inauguration Grant in 2019.  At NUS Chemistry, his research has been published in reputable scientific journals, including Nature Catalysis, Chem and Journal of the American Chemical Society. Dr Koh’s current research focuses on developing sustainable and enabling catalytic solutions that address critical and unresolved problems in chemical synthesis by homogeneous base metal catalysis, heterogeneous single-atom catalysis and radical chemistry.

Dr Li Hao, Amy obtained her Bachelor degree in Biochemistry and Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the National Science Scholarship in 2008. She continued her PhD in Chemical and Systems Biology at Stanford University. She did her post-doctoral studies in the Molecular Engineering Laboratory, A*STAR Singapore under the supervision of the late Nobel Laureate Professor Sydney Brenner.

Dr Li’s research focuses on deciphering at a molecular level how microbial enzymes and their associated molecules structure the human environments they reside. In particular, she aims to define the functions of the microbial community in order to link human microbiome-associated diseases to targetable pathways and mechanisms. Her research has been published in reputable scientific journals, including Nature and Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Assistant Professor Tan Zhi Kuang

Dr Tan Zhi Kuang studied Chemistry and Technology Entrepreneurship at the National University of Singapore (NUS), and received his Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) with a first class Honours in 2010. He earned his PhD in Physics at the University of Cambridge through the support of the prestigious Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) scholarship.

In 2014, he invented the first perovskite-based light-emitting diode, which possesses remarkable color performance and efficiencies, and has since attracted significant academic and commercial interest. His research has been published in reputable scientific journals, including Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Photonics and Advanced Materials, and has received an aggregate of 5,000 academic citations. His research inventions have also led to multiple licensed patents and two deep-tech startup companies in the advanced display technologies domain. His group aims to investigate the rich photo-physics of perovskite semiconductors and quantum dots, and seeks to develop advanced photonic devices for color displays and wearable electronics applications.