image: Singapore University of Technology and Design
Credit: SUTD
More than 20 Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) faculty, representing more than a quarter of the University’s total tenure track faculty, have been ranked among the top 2% of the most-cited scientists worldwide in 2023.
The prestigious list, as compiled by Stanford University, is based on the bibliometric information in the Scopus database1, and includes more than 220,000 researchers from across the globe, classified into 22 scientific fields and 174 subfields.
Of these, four of them – SUTD President Professor Phoon Kok Kwang, Associate Provost for Research Professor Chua Chee Kai from the Engineering Product Development Pillar, Assistant Professor Soujanya Poria and Assistant Professor Xiong Zehui from the Information Systems Technology and Design Pillar – were ranked in the top 0.1% in their subject fields such as Geological & Geomatics Engineering, Industrial Engineering & Automation, Artificial Intelligence & Image Processing, and Networking & Telecommunications respectively – a testament to SUTD’s research strengths in these areas.
Professor Chua, a 2023 Fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore (SAEng), was ranked 100th out of 113,906 researchers in Industrial Engineering and Automation. This is the fifth consecutive year that he was ranked top 0.1% in his field. With over 500 publications, Prof Chua is recognised as the most cited scientist in the field of 3D printing, according to the Web of Science. His groundbreaking work in additive manufacturing has been instrumental in advancing innovations across various sectors, from healthcare to aerospace, solidifying his reputation as a global leader in the field. His contributions have not only pushed the boundaries of 3D printing technology but have also paved the way for transformative applications worldwide.
Assistant Professor Poria, who is in the AI & Image Processing field, focuses on Large Language Models and Multimodal Deep Learning. For the third consecutive year, he has been ranked among the top 0.1% in his field. Two years ago, he was recognised as one of "AI's 10 to Watch" by IEEE Intelligent Systems, which highlights promising young AI scientists. In 2023, the 32-year-old not only received the Young Scientist Award by the President's Science and Technology Awards for his significant contributions to multimodal conversational AI, which has seen widespread adoption, but he was also one of 35 innovators in the region to earn a place in the list of MIT Technology Review's 2023 Under 35 Innovators for Asia-Pacific.
Similarly, fellow ISTD Assistant Professor Xiong, a researcher in Networking & Telecommunications, was ranked for the third consecutive year. However, this is the first year that he was ranked in the top 0.1% in his field – a testament to his outstanding research work on wireless networks, Internet of Things, blockchain, edge computing, AI, and the Metaverse. Assistant Prof Xiong was also named Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Asia Class of 2023 and the Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher last year. Just recently, he was awarded the IEEE Asia-Pacific Outstanding Young Researcher Award and IEEE Asia-Pacific Outstanding Paper Award, both of which are sponsored by IEEE Communications Society.
Said Assistant Prof Xiong: “I'm deeply honoured to be recognised for my work. This achievement reflects the innovative spirit of our research community. Being ranked the top 0.1% of my field will motivate me to keep pushing boundaries and contribute to the future of connectivity and technology.”
1Scopus is a source-neutral abstract and citation database curated by independent subject matter experts who are recognised leaders in their fields. Scopus indexes content from 7,000+ publishers and includes 91+ million records, 94,000+ affiliation profiles and 17+ million authors.