Phua Kok Khoo () is a

Singaporean Singaporeans, or the Singaporean people, refers to citizens or people who identify with the sovereign island city-state of Singapore. Singapore is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual country. Singaporeans of Chinese, Malay, Ind ...

publisher, academic, and philanthropist.

About

Phua is the son of late Teochew merchant and community figure Phua Chay Long (). Graduated from the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingha ...

with a PhD in

Mathematical Physics Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The '' Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the developme ...

in 1970, he is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of

World Scientific World Scientific Publishing is an academic publisher of scientific, technical, and medical books and journals headquartered in Singapore. The company was founded in 1981. It publishes about 600 books annually, along with 135 journals in various ...

Publishing, Asia's largest international scientific publishing company, which he founded in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

in 1981. He is the founding director of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Nanyang Technological University, as well as an adjunct professor in the Department of Physics at the National University of Singapore. In 2009 Phua was elected as Fellow of the American Physical Society for his contributions to research and education in physics. He was awarded the American Physical Society President's Award by the institute of Physics Singapore Council in 2006, for his contributions to physics research and education in Singapore. Phua was awarded the honorary degree of

Doctor of Science Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

(DSc) by the University of Birmingham in Singapore in 2013. In 2014 Phua donated e-books worth £1 million to the

's new library.

References

Alumni of the University of Birmingham National University of Singapore faculty Living people Singaporean people of Teochew descent Fellows of the American Physical Society Singaporean businesspeople Year of birth missing (living people) {{Singapore-bio-stub