Outstanding Educator Award

Associate Professor SEAH Kar Heng

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Assoc Prof Seah teaches in the manner he lives, with zest and to the fullest. A man of many talents and interests, he brings his classes to life with real world examples. A recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award, he strongly advocated open book examinations in NUS. His module, Manufacturing Technology, was the test bed for its eventual implementation for core modules in his Department.

Students taking Assoc Prof Seah's classes never know what to expect. They could find themselves learning to mint currency or looking at a toilet seat. The results however are never in doubt. Students' interests are engaged and they grasp the principles of engineering knowledge through everyday commonalities they can easily relate to.

Assoc Prof Seah's mark as an educator is his exceptional ability to present his teaching materials so that they connect with his students. He achieves this by highlighting them with realities of the work-place and peppering them with humour. His tutorial questions are rooted in real-life engineering cases and his lecture notes based on his experience in industry. His army water bottle, mess tins and Kevlar helmet have all appeared in class to prove a point.

The musically-inclined professor, who is almost a one-man orchestra as he plays several wind, brass, string and keyboard instruments, exudes the same passion and presence in front of his students as he does performing on stage. "I treat every tutorial and lecture as a live performance," he says, downplaying the dedicated backstage work needed to capture a rapt and inspired audience.

Not one to linger in a comfort zone, Assoc Prof Seah who speaks at least 10 languages strives to cultivate in his students' agile minds that thirst for knowledge and are responsive to change. His assessment and examination questions are designed to work against stock answers. Set on real-life engineering problems encountered in industry, they require students to think through acquired knowledge to arrive at optimal solutions.

The University Award is presented to Assoc Prof Seah in recognition of his innovative teaching. The loudest cheers will, no doubt, come from his students. For an encore, there are the many former students who still contact him by email to discuss problems they encounter at work.