What does cooking have to do with running an engineering college? More than you think, as HEY! finds out from Prof Warren Chan, NTU’s new dean of engineering, who also hopes to cultivate a greater appetite for risk-taking among students
by Foo Jie Ying / Photos by Hillary Tan
Prof Warren Chan loves to cook.
Little wonder that the dean of engineering leans on culinary metaphors to get his points across.
Running the college of engineering, for instance, is like making a pizza.
“You figure out the pizza you want to make and think about how to make it. You assemble the ingredients, then taste the pizza you’ve made to see if it’s good, before deciding what to change so it tastes better the next time you make it,” he says.
“You manage the engineering college in the same manner. You define a goal, develop a strategy to reach the goal, execute the strategy, see if the outcome matches, and make adjustments. You figure out what is needed to make each school run and keep optimising until you get the ‘pizza’ or ‘meal’ you want.”
Since July, Prof Chan has been “making pizza” at NTU. An American Canadian, he was formerly from the University of Toronto, where he spent the last two decades advancing research in nanomedicine, diagnostics and drug delivery.
It was his wife who encouraged him to take up the career opportunity, and the couple and their 14-year-old son, 11-year-old daughter and dog moved over.
Prof Chan says that his curiosity about Singapore as well as the “momentum of good things happening in NTU” sealed the deal.
His daughter, Sophia, however, was less excited about the move halfway across the globe.
“My son loves computers and keyboards, and he says that Singapore is supposedly the ‘keyboard capital’ of the world, so he’s very happy. But my daughter has a group of friends she misses a lot,” says Prof Chan.
If it’s good enough for Taylor Swift, we’ll be there
That Taylor Swift stopped by Singapore for The Eras Tour helped to sell Singapore to Sophia, who is a Swiftie.
“She thought it was cool that Taylor Swift came to Singapore. But she wasn’t totally happy until she went to the Olivia Rodrigo concert,” he says with a laugh.
Prof Chan himself is also easing into life on this sunny island. Sitting by the door of his office are two huge boxes shipped from Toronto, waiting to be unpacked.
He is still trying to get used to various things on campus, from the high heat intensity of the stove – it’s not ideal for French cooking, he says – to the sartorial choice that many profs opt for on campus.
“I don’t think I own a white or blue shirt, nor do I have black dress shoes,” he quips. “It’s a North American thing,” he says, referring to the t-shirt and jeans combination that he goes for back in Canada.
“Everyone loves food here, right? The idea is to get people together to talk about science and engineering in an environment that is not stressful. That’s how new ideas, new projects, or even companies come about.”
Cooking up ideas
Over the past few months, Prof Chan has been attending events and seminars, and familiarising himself with how things work in NTU.
Food, he realises, is a love language that most people here speak. “I’ve put on so much weight since I got here,” he says.
An idea he has been cooking up for the engineering college is to create more “soft events” that bring students, faculty and the community from different disciplines together over food and drinks.
“Everyone loves food here, right? The idea is to get people together to talk about science and engineering in an environment that is not stressful. That’s how new ideas, new projects, or even companies come about.”
This diversity is important because through these interactions, students learn to communicate with people from different disciplines, says Prof Chan.
The co-founder of four startups also hopes to create a culture that encourages failure – an ingredient he believes is essential for entrepreneurship He explains: “Students need to see failing as part of entrepreneurship, because that’s how you learn? From failure, you learn how to build things. You learn how to accept the failure psychologically and grow from that experience.”
Fun facts about Prof Warren Chan
1. His career began at the science fair. Prof Chan developed an interest in science when he was 12, after tagging along with his older brother to science fairs, where students perform experiments and present their findings. He also found that attending these science fairs was a lot more fun than sitting in class.
2. French cooking is his jam. Back in Toronto, Prof Chan did a lot of French cooking, simmering stews like bouillabaisse (a French seafood stew). He has not been able to do it here because he is still trying to get a hang of the stoves in Singapore, which heat up much faster. He has mostly stuck to stir-fries but has recently expanded his homecooked meals to include steak, curry and pasta.
3. He was knee-deep in Toronto’s dragon boat racing scene. For eight years, Prof Chan was part of Toronto’s thriving dragon boat racing scene. He put his paddles away after becoming a father but hopes to be back on the water one day.
4. His kids love the handmade noodles at NTU. The Wonderful Café at Canteen 2 has long been a favourite among NTU students for its juicy soup dumplings. Now, it has gained two new fans in Prof Chan’s children, who love the stall’s freshly hand-pulled noodles. The noodles are a breath of fresh air from the pre-packed ones that are found in North America, even in the restaurants, says Prof Chan.
Prof Chan making waves with his dragon boat team, Bod Squad, in his younger days in Toronto.
This story was published in the Sep-Oct 2024 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.
