Professor Subra Suresh is an eminent American scientist, engineer and entrepreneur with decades of distinguished and impactful leadership in academia, industry and government. He was appointed president of NTU in July 2017 and began his tenure on 1st January 2018. He was the ninth President of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) from 2013 to 2017. Before that, he served as Director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2010 to 2013, and Dean of the School of Engineering and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering from 2007 to 2010 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was a faculty member for two decades. Prof Suresh’s research in materials science and engineering, mechanics and biomedicine has helped to shape disciplines and technologies at the intersections of engineering, science and medicine. In recognition of his stellar academic achievements, the NTU Board of Trustees appointed him the inaugural Distinguished University Professor. Newly set up in 2017, this Professorship is awarded for extraordinary scholarly achievement, typically across multiple disciplinary boundaries, and it is the highest academic recognition at NTU.