Zhongni Distinguished Educator Award Recipient
About the Donor and Award
Zhongni, the courtesy name of Confucius, who is well known universally for his wisdom and devotion to holistic education. It aptly brings out the aim of this Award, to recognise and celebrate whole-person education, which is the hallmark of Confucian education and which integrates intellectual and cultural attainments with ethical excellence embodying the enduring values of humanity (rén), integrity (yì), respect (lǐ), wisdom (zhì), and the teacher’s mission to propagate wisdom (chuán dào), impart professional knowledge (shòu yè), and resolve doubts (jiě huò). By naming this the Zhongni Distinguished Educator Award, the donor, Professor Lee Swee-Huat would like to honour the timeless ideals of selfless mentorship, character formation, and the pursuit of harmony and humanity of excellent teachers. The Award affirms the pivotal role educators play in shaping minds and communities, towards Confucius' ultimate vision of a peaceful and better world for all (dà tóng shì jiè).
An educator himself, the donor’s philanthropic vision is rooted in his belief that educators are the cornerstone of a thriving and happy society through transformative education. Through this award, he seeks to elevate the visibility of exceptional teaching to inspire scholars to pursue excellence not only in research but also in education.
2025
Professor Robert Deng Huijie is an internationally renowned educator and scholar, whose career in Cybersecurity and Cryptography spans over four decades. Since joining SMU School of Computing and Information Systems (SCIS) in 2004, Professor Deng has established a distinguished record of scholarship, leadership, and mentorship, continually setting new benchmarks and inspiring students and peers to do likewise. He was conferred the prestigious AXA Chair Professorship in March 2017. In 2020, Professor Deng received the Public Administration Medal (Silver) National Day Award for his significant contributions to Singapore. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Singapore Academy of Engineering (SAEng), and the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA).
Academic Service
Professor Deng’s leadership and service to SMU is inextricably tied to the development and growth of Ph.D. programmes, particularly at SCIS. As Director of SCIS Research Centre from 2004 to 2012, he was instrumental in setting up management policies and processes for funded projects, enabling significant research activities at SCIS. From 2006, Professor Deng served as Associate Dean (Faculty), setting the foundations for SCIS’s faculty hiring strategy and performance evaluation framework. At the same time, Professor Deng worked closely with Professor Pang Hwee Hwa, the founding director of the SCIS Ph.D. Programme, to formulate the programme proposal, curriculum structure and policies, and then served on the Ph.D. programme committee till 2014. By leveraging Professor Deng’s extensive credentials and professional networks, SCIS was able to attract high-quality Ph.D. students even from its early years. For instance, the student exchange programme he initiated between the College of Computer Science and College of Software Technology at Zhejiang University with SCIS attracted talented undergraduate students to SMU between 2006 and 2011, including several who went on to join SCIS’s Ph.D. programme. Between 2016 and 2018, Professor Deng served as SMU Dean of Postgraduate Research Programmes, and spearheaded key initiatives that enabled the establishment of Dual Degree and Joint Degree Ph.D. programmes, Fast-track Master-Ph.D. programmes, Integrated Master-Ph.D. programmes, the Multidisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship, Interdisciplinary Doctoral Programme, and the Postgraduate Research Programme Committee. Under his academic leadership, SMU enhanced the use of social media marketing for Ph.D. programme outreach and introduced schemes to address existing constraints on Ph.D. head count caps, significantly accelerating the growth of SCIS’s Ph.D. programme. Currently, Professor Deng is the Deputy Dean of Faculty and Research at SCIS.
Teaching and mentorship
Professor Deng’s contributions to both undergraduate and postgraduate curricula started from SCIS’s earliest years, before the world came to recognise Cybersecurity’s importance. Under Professor Deng’s leadership, Cybersecurity was included in the B.Sc. (Information Systems Management) core curriculum in 2004, which today has also evolved into a full Cybersecurity track in the B.Sc. (Computer Science) degree. For postgraduate programmes, he designed three of the four Cybersecurity postgraduate courses he taught, including IS702 Information Security, a mandatory course in the Cybersecurity area, and a popular course even for Ph.D. students from other areas. Because of the pivotal role he has played in shaping SCIS’s postgraduate curriculum, Cybersecurity is now one of the primary areas for Ph.D. in Computer Science and MSc (Computing) degrees. Professor Deng has personally mentored generations of Ph.D. students, engineers and scientists in their research careers. Within SMU, numerous tenure-track junior faculty at SCIS have benefited from his mentorship, some of whom are now full professors fronting significant research programmes of their own at SMU, or at other institutions, such as the University of Oregon. Beyond SMU, Professor Deng’s students have also taken on faculty positions at institutions including Nanyang Technological University, Singapore University of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Xidian University and Jinan University, as well as leading industry positions at global corporations such as Google, ByteDance, Huawei, MediaTek, Standard Chartered and Singapore Airlines.
As an educator, Professor Deng’s was deeply concerned with the quality curriculum delivery and learning experience within the classroom. He proposed innovations in teaching Cybersecurity, such as including substantial hands-on activities into curriculum delivery, or replacing final exams with intense, bite-sized hackathons judiciously timed at critical milestones throughout an academic term. Among the multitude of students and peers mentored, many have highlighted Professor Deng’s ability to engage students by making complex concepts easy to follow while maintaining rigour. He is known for his gift in inspiring curiosity through critical thinking and real-world problem-solving, and the generosity of time, wisdom, and encouragement when challenges appear insurmountable.
Research
Professor Deng’s groundbreaking work in Cryptography and Cybersecurity has revolutionised protection standards in the smart card industry and mobile security. His innovations in privacy and security protocols have made today’s connected world a safer place, and his prolific research is exemplified by numerous peer-reviewed publications and patents from jurisdictions across Singapore, United States of America, United Kingdom, and Europe. Having attracted substantial funding from government agencies and industry partners such as the Singapore National Research Foundation, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), and Huawei International, Professor Deng’s achievements have created funding and opportunities for generations of undergraduate, graduate students, and junior faculty at SMU. The public sector frequently calls upon him to contribute his deep expertise to national level initiatives. Professor Deng’s more recent roles include being the Chair of the Trust Tech Technical Committee of Digital Trust Centre (DTC Singapore), and member of the National Cybersecurity Research & Development Technical Review Panel.
