|
The
National University of Singapore and Brown University have
formalised an agreement to set up a concurrent degree programme in
computational biology. The agreement became official when Professor
Tan Chorh Chuan, President of the National University of Singapore (NUS),
and Brown President Ruth J Simmons signed the papers on 1 September
2009. The programme is the first formal partnership between the two
sides and marks Brown’s continuing efforts to forge academic ties
internationally and to attract talented, motivated students from
around the world.
Professor Tan said: “NUS is pleased to partner Brown University,
which has an outstanding reputation for innovative education and
research, to offer an integrated program in the important area of
computational biology. The joint programme will enable our students
specialising in computational biology to further advance their
knowledge with the pioneers in the field. We look forward to more
opportunities to collaborate with Brown University in research and
education.”
“The sequencing of the human genome has opened a vast new area of
research at the junction of the computing and biomedical sciences,”
Professor Simmons said. “Computational biology is growing at Brown.
We are excited by the possibilities of this new relationship with
the National University of Singapore.”
Under the agreement, undergraduate students from NUS School of
Computing who are accepted into the programme will go to Brown to
pursue a master’s degree in computational biology. The accepted
students must have earned a bachelor’s degree of computing in
computational biology at NUS before being eligible to apply for the
Brown master’s track. After participating students have completed
the programme, they will receive concurrently an undergraduate
bachelor of computing degree and a master’s degree in computer
science with a special designation in computational biology.
The inspiration for the concurrent degree came about in summer 2007
while Professor Franco Preparata of Brown was a visiting chair at
NUS School of Computing. He commented: “NUS is an excellent school,
first of all. Second, Brown is now open very much to international
institutions, and NUS is one of the most influential ones.”
Professor Wong Lim Soon, Head of Computer Science at NUS School of
Computing welcomed the tie-up: “I am delighted with our deepening
ties with Brown. I believe our students will develop greater
maturity and depth in computational biology through the time at
Brown.”
As many as 10 students are expected to be enrolled in the five-year
concurrent degree program in each academic year. NUS Computing
students may have their master’s degree work at Brown suppported
with funding from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
(IDA) under its National Infocomm Scholarships (NIS) scheme. |
