Pursuing a PhD has long been my dream. Doing PhD at IORA is one of the most right things that I have done. The changing environment presents a lot of challenges, which are also opportunities for us to explore, in the area of optimization. Currently, I am doing mechanism design and interface of operations research and machine learning. It is amazing to implement the most popular technique—machine learning to solve operations research problem, especially in the big data era. There are still many unknown issues needs our endeavor. Pursuing PhD at IORA is fulfilling. Being here, I get a bunch of friends to chat, to talk about research ideas and to encourage each other. Beyond that, the weekly seminar consistently help refresh my knowledge base. Moreover, the faculty here are fantastic. They are always enthusiastic, approachable and helpful. Everytime when I got stuck, I can get input to help me improve myself
Student
What makes a good PhD programme?
The PhD programme in NUS IORA has three important features that makes it uniquely excellent. Firstly, the institute has top-of-the-class teaching staff who are actively doing research work and publishing in top journals as they work alongside with the students. Secondly, there is an collaborative culture within the institute whereby the teaching staff actively engage the PhD students to do research work from the very first day, including (a) one-to-one discussion-cum-consultation, (b) weekly seminars, (c) weekly talks from internal staff, external visitors and senior students, (d) collaborations with industrial players so as to fine-tune the relevance and usefulness of research work and (e) exposures to various international conferences and seminars. Finally, there is a good blend of international diversity on both the staff and the students to expose and explore different ideas across the world.
These three important features make the PhD programme in NUS IORA to be one of the finest in the world.
Student