Lau Hoong Chuin's Teaching Portfolio

 

Courses and Training:

(a) Current Courses (at Singapore Management University, School of Information Systems):

IS102: Computer as Analysis Tool (password access, for SMU students only)

IS703: Decision Support and Optimization (Old offering)  (the new offering is only available on SMU Vista intranet with password access)

IS753: Advanced Topics in Intelligent Decision Support (Old offering)  (the new offering is only available on SMU Vista intranet with password access)

IS470: Guided Research (coordinator)

IS421: Enterprise Adaptive Decision Support (password access, for SMU students only)

(b) Previous Courses (at NUS, School of Computing):

CS2103: Software Engineering.

CS3230: Design and Analysis of Algorithms.

CS5234: Combinatorial Graph Algorithms 

(c) Professional/Executive Short Courses:

Applied Algorithmics (One such course has been conducted for PSA) 

(d) Training:

ACM/IOI Programming Contest Training. 

 

Project/Thesis Supervision:

I supervised a large number of undergraduate research projects. They include HYP (Honors year project), UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program) and Ministry of Education SRP (for gifted JC students).

For postgraduate projects/thesis, the following are MSc and PhD students and projects I supervised since 2000:

(1) Melvyn Sim. Over-constrained Vehicle Routing with Time Windows Part I (MSc, SMA)

Assistant Professor, NUS Business School (PhD graduate from MIT)

(2) Teo Kwong Ming Over-constrained Vehicle Routing with Time Windows Part II (MSc, SMA)

PhD candidate at MIT

(3) Song Huawei Corrective Maintenance of Military Systems (MSc, SOC)

PhD candidate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA)

(4) Sankaran Sri Nivas Transportation Planning and Modeling of SembLog India Operations (MSc, TLI-AP)

Working at SembCorp Logistics (India)

(5) Lim Min Kwang Ant-Colony Meta-Heuristics: Schemes and Software Framework (MSc, SOC)

Working at Datacraft Asia (Singapore)

(6) Wu Xiaotao Transport Planning with Service Constraints (MSc, SOC)

Working at Microsoft (Shanghai)

(7) Wang Hui Two Agent-Based Approaches for Solving Multi-Objective Optimization Problems (MSc, SOC)

PhD candidate at University of Southern California (USA)

(8) Ng Yong Jin Stolt Tank Containers: Best Route Solutions (MSc, TLI-AP)

Working at Stolt Tank Containers (Singapore)

(9) Que Youguang Transportation Management and Modeling of SembLog China Operations (MSc, TLI-AP)

Working at SembCorp Logistics (China)

(10) Soh Guan Li A Pickup and Delivery Problem in a Military Transportation Context (MSc, TLI-AP)

Working at Hewlett Packard (Singapore)

(11) Wan Wee Chong Meta-Heuristics Development Framework: Design and Applications (MSc, SOC)

Working at an IT startup company (Singapore)

(12) Li Jia Robust Controllability of Temporal Constraint Network Under Uncertainty (MSc, SOC)

Working at Microsoft, Seattle Washington (USA)

(13) Feng Guang Algorithms for Scheduling Problems with Weighted Earliness/Tardiness Penalty (MSc, SOC)

Working at ILOG (Singapore)

(14) Thomas Ou Robust Meta-Heuristics Framework  (MSc, TLI-AP)

Working at Schlumberger (Singapore)

(15) Lucas Agussurja Scheduling Games Complexity and Algorithms (MSc, SOC)

Working at TLI-AP (Singapore)

(16) Ramesh Thangarajoo Hybrid Techniques for Emergency Response Optimization (PhD candidate, ISE)

(17) Steven Halim Visualization of Local Search Trajectory (PhD candidate, SOC)

(18) Zhao Zhengyi Decentralized Job Scheduling via Combinatorial Auctions (PhD candidate, ECE)

(19) Fu Na Robust Scheduling (PhD candidate in SIS)

(20) Lindawati Topic to be decided (PhD candidate in SIS)

Some of the student projects I supervised have won prestigious awards, e.g.:

  • Multi-Dimensional Knapsack Problem (by Trung Tuan Dung) won the MOE SRP VIP award and Singapore Science and Engineering Fair Gold Medal, 2005.
  • Task Allocation via Coalition Formation in Multi-Agent Systems (by Zhang Lei) won the 2002 NITA Competition Best Student Award. 
  • Intelligent Fourth-Party Logistics (by Gary Lo) won a Merit Award in the SingAREN-Sttarfire-iPlanet Advanced e-Business Applications Competition 2001.
  • Over-Constrained Vehicle Routing Problems (by Melvyn Sim and Teo Kwong Meng) won the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) Best Student Project, 2000.
  • Most of my conference and journal papers are results of student projects.

If you are interested in MSc and PhD topics, please refer to the Research page for further details. 

 

My Teaching Philosophy

  • An effective teacher must have an innate desire for knowledge and a natural tendency to apply the knowledge in creative and beneficial ways. If the teacher can fulfill this desire by making the material relevant and within reach, then learning ceases to be a chore and becomes a personal desire.
  • An effective teacher must provide a learning ethos that minimizes the opportunity for distraction and laziness. Through a balanced reward and penalty scheme, the teacher can provide the most compelling environment for true learning to take place.
  • An effective teacher must also be constantly abreast in his subject. This comes from disciplined study of the subject as well as creative activity in the subject area. Research is one avenue for this creative activity. Research stimulates the teacher to view his subject from many angles and also compels him to understand the limitations of the current level of knowledge.
  • Despite the best intentions and methods, an effective teacher cannot teach without students who are willing and able. Students must have some capability in the subject area, and the teacher can play an important role in encouraging them to discover their capabilities.