Professor Yaacob Ibrahim is currently Professor in Practice at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS) and Advisor, Office of the President, Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), as well as Director, Community Leadership and Social Innovation Centre (CLASIC), SIT, where he oversees SIT’s efforts in community-related projects and initiatives, and the nurturing of social advocate leaders who are grounded in research and community development.
Prior to his current positions at NUS and SIT, Prof Yaacob served as a Minister in the Ministries of Communications and Information (2011 – 2018), Environment and Water Resources (2004 – 2011) and Community Development and Sports (2002 – 2004). Throughout the 16 years as a Minister, he was also Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs. Prof Yaacob started his political career as a Member of Parliament in Jalan Besar GRC on 2 January 1997, and held several political appointments before becoming a Minister in 2002.
Prof Yaacob graduated from the University of Singapore with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1980. He worked as a structural engineer with a multinational engineering consulting firm from 1980 to 1984. He pursued his PhD at Stanford University from 1984 and graduated in 1989. He spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at Cornell University. He joined the National University of Singapore (NUS) as a faculty member in 1990 and was a tenured member until August 2018.
Prof Yaacob sits on the board of several private companies and unions. He is Chairman of the Governing Board for the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) and of St John’s Island National Marine Laboratory. He is on the Board of Trustees for the Building Construction and Timber Industries Employees’ Union (BATU), and is a Board Member of Surbana Jurong Group and Singapore Power. He is also an independent director of Chip Eng Seng Corporation Limited and Oceanus Group Limited.
He also serves as Advisor, AI Singapore, a national Artificial Intelligence (AI) programme launched by the National Research Foundation to catalyse Singapore’s AI capabilities.