Engineering Systems Division alumna Lynette Cheah SM '08, PhD '10 and her team won the inaugural Singapore Challenge Prize at the first ever Global Young Scientists Summit@one-north (GYSS@one-north), a prestigious international conference held in Singapore. Cheah, a research scientist at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), was presented with a special medallion by Singapore's President Tony Tan and was awarded $100,000 to pursue her research. Read news item on the MIT website and on channelnewsasia.com. Cheah’s team consisted of Dr. Francisco Pereira, Senior Research Scientist for Singapore-MIT alliance’s Future of Urban Mobility Group, Dr. Erik Wilhelm, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Je McAulay, a Program Manager for Fraunhofer USA Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, and Don MacKenzie and Stephen Zoepf, current ESD PhD students.
After five days of inspiring talks, panel discussions, mentoring sessions and close interactions between eminent scientific leaders and young researchers from around the world, the inaugural Global Young Scientists Summit@one-north (GYSS@one-north) was officially closed by President Tony Tan Keng Yam, Patron of GYSS@one-north. About 350 people--15 eminent science and technology speakers, 280 top researchers and scientists from around the world, guests from the local and international research community, and industry figures--gathered at the EduSports Centre, University Town, National University of Singapore, for the GYSS@one-north Closing Ceremony.
Based on the theme of first Singapore Challenge, “Innovations for Future Cities”, the finale saw 10 young scientists presenting ground-breaking ideas to address sustainability challenges faced by global cities to a panel of distinguished judges.
Dr. Lynette Cheah impressed the judges with her research proposal to build a dynamic transportation network to shift commuters’ travel modes in response to real-time feedback and system disruptions. Under such an adaptive urban transportation network, taxis would converge at places with predicted high demand. Shuttle buses with reconfigurable routes ply the city’s streets. Taxi and car commuters share rides and vehicle occupancy rates reach near capacity. Bus and train frequencies are automatically adjusted. Flexible traffic signals change their timings according to traffic counts to efficiently smoothen traffic flow.