Professor Tan Tai Yong is the Vice-Provost (Student Life) at the National University of Singapore overseeing student matters, University Town and the Residential Colleges, the Centre for English Language and Communication as well as the Office of Student Affairs and the Halls of Residence. He is concurrently Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies, an autonomous university-level research institute in NUS.

Professor Tan is honorary chairman of the National Museum of Singapore and board member of the National Archives of Singapore. He is also a member of the governing board of the East Asia Institute, and the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

A graduate of NUS, Prof Tan completed his doctorate at Cambridge University. He has been a faculty member of the NUS Department of History since 1992 and served the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences as Sub-Dean (1994-1999), Head of the History Department (2000-2003), Vice-Dean (2001-2003) and Dean (2004-2009). Prof Tan is currently a member of the editorial boards of Modern Asian Studies, India Review and the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.

As a recognition for his commitment to teaching, he received the Teaching Excellence Awards in 1992 and 2000. In 2001, Prof Tan was awarded the Moncado Prize for outstanding essay published in the Journal of Military History. He has received a number of fellowship awards, including the Overseas Commonwealth Fellowship, British Academy Visiting Fellowship, the Wolfson College (Cambridge) Fellowship as well as a Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine. He was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Silver) at the 2009 National Day Awards.

Professor Tan specializes in South and Southeast Asian History and he has published extensively on the Sikh Diaspora, social and political history of colonial Punjab, de-colonization and the partition of South Asia, and Singapore history. He has authored and co-authored several books, including From Classical Emporium to World City: Singapore – a 700-Year History (2009); Creating Greater Malaysia: The Politics of Merger (2008); The Garrison State (2005) and The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia (2001).