Bangkok--6 Jul--AIT
An alumnus of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Professor Yew-Chaye Loo of Australia has been awarded the honorary title of “The World Chinese Top 10 Enterprising Pioneer”. Prof. Loo, who is the Foundation Chair of Civil Engineering at Griffith University, Queensland, received the honor at a ceremony on 21 May 2011 at the National People’s Congress Conference Centre, Beijing, China. The award is intended for persons of Chinese descent.
The Honourable Zhou Tie-nong, Vice Chairman, Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress presided over the event. The honour was awarded jointly by the World Chinese Venture Model Association (WCVMA) and the China Association for Promoting International Economic and Technical Cooperation, which is a subsidiary of the China Association for Science and Technology.
Two other categories of titles were also awarded in Beijing: The “World Top 10 Enterprising Model” and the “World Top 100 Enterprising Star”. In all, three Australians of Chinese descent were honored, one in each of the three categories. Prof. Loo was the sole academic to win the award.
To commemorate the occasion, Chinese authorities published a Biographic-Philatelic album which featured the life stories of the top 60 awardees, each complemented by two pieces of officially issued personalized postage stamps.
Prof. Loo was born in 1944 in Ipoh in the then British Malaya. He entered AIT in 1966 and earned his MEng in Structural Engineering in 1968. The AIT graduate then went on to obtain his PhD from Dundee University, Scotland in 1971. Prof. Loo is married, and has two children.
The following is an excerpt in from the award’s commemorative album: “From a Chinese-educated schoolboy in a British Malayan backwater, Yew-Chaye Loo has become one of Australia’s most senior and prominent structural engineering academics.”
At Griffith University Prof. Loo is an international authority on concrete structures. His research now includes road and bridge assets management, in particular the effective use of bridge management systems for major networks.
Photo caption: Prof. Yew-Chaye Loo, right.