Eight NUS research projects awarded grants by A*STAR

14 Sep 2009

The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) gave grants amounting to a total of S$12.2 million to 17 projects in the areas of media & entertainment, medical technologies, education, water, infocomm, chemicals, energy and electronics. Of these, eight NUS projects were awarded grants.

On the A*STAR grants, SERC Executive Director Prof Chong Tow Chong said: "Excellent science and research talent are critical to achieving impactful technological outcomes. These grants from A*STAR will foster high quality R&D and innovation among researchers in Singapore and drive the development and advancement of knowledge-intensive industries."

He added that this year saw a record high number of 115 applicants. "The 17 teams that ultimately secured the research grants are indeed the crème de la crème and they have the potential to break new grounds and deliver impactful outcomes which can enhance the way we live and the way we learn in the near future," noted Prof Chong.

Grants are given under the A*STAR SERC Public Sector Funding (PSF). First incepted in 2001, the PSF programme has awarded a total of 184 grants to research projects. More than half of the projects have been completed and their findings have been published in more than 1330 research journals and a total of 90 primary patents had been filed.

The NUS recipients are:

• Integration of Silicon Photonic Crystals and MEMS Actuator for Next Generation Active and Tunable Nanophotonics in Filter and Modulator Applications
  PI: Dr Aaron Danner, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
• Development of Hybrid Desalination Processes using Cold Energy from LNG Regasification
  PI: Prof Neal Chung, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Video Text Recognition Research
  PI: Prof Tan Chew Lim, Department of Computer Science
• Development of Novel Methods of Fabricating Metallic Nano Injection Molds for Lab-on-chip Biomedical Sample Preparation and DNA Analysis Applications
  PI: Dr Jeroen Anton Van Kan, Department of Physics
• The Applications of Digital Signal Processing in 100-Gbit/s Coherent Optical Communication Systems
  PI: Dr Yu Changyuan, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
• Intelligent Control-Induced Vibration in Hard Disk Drive
  PI: Assoc Prof Xu Jian Xin, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
• Development of Metal Oxide based Affinity Membranes for Decontamination of Arsenic
  PI: Assoc Prof J. Paul Chen, Division of Environmental Science and Engineering
• Nanoelectronics based on Advanced Theory of Gauge Symmetry and Relativistic Transport
  PI: Assoc Prof Jalil Mansoor Bin Abdul, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering