Inaugural Graduation of the NUS Executive Visiting Fellows Programme

From left to right: Professor Dean Ho, Dr Mathias Egermark, Professor Susanna Leong and Associate Professor Chai Kah Hin.

14 March 2022 — NUS SCALE celebrated the graduation of Dr Mathias Egermark, who successfully completed the inaugural NUS Executive Visiting Fellows programme. The NUS Executive Visiting Fellows programme is a distinctive learning and research pathway within NUS, offered to select individuals to deepen their knowledge and proficiencies in a highly customised fashion. The programme, which extends from one to two terms, includes active participation in courses from a wide selection of academic fields, combined with research or project work closely aligned with the Fellow’s individual or organisational agenda. It also allows Fellows to experience the NUS post-graduate life while collaborating and networking with faculty members, lecturers, and students.

Prior to his fellowship, Dr Egermark was at the forefront of international healthcare solutions development and global business strategy in Roche. During the Visiting Fellows programme, Dr Egermark pursued courses in policy, innovation and technology. This included Health Economics and Healthcare Policy studies at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, where he deepened his understanding on the potential of Advance Market Commitments (AMC) for the medical device industry and the application of digital medicine. In addition, he studied Serious Game Design for use in Healthcare at NUS Biomedical Engineering where he along with other students designed a simulator game to make activities of daily living more engaging for people living with dementia. He also taught as a co-instructor in Biodesign and participated as a fellow and co-contributor on a clinical trial design in the research team at the N.1 Institute for Health. There he investigated how curate.ai, an AI-based platform, can be used for medical treatment optimization. Through these courses, teaching, and research engagements, he gained insights to the macro-level environment of healthcare systems and government policy in South-East Asia and globally, the innovation process of design thinking and evidence-generation for AI and digital health crucial for enabling the development of novel innovations needed to improve healthcare around the world.

“This programme was highly rewarding and a significant milestone in my life where I could do something meaningful for the world to address challenges such as ageing society and management of chronic diseases,” shared Dr Egermark. “The rich experiences from this fellowship showed me, among other things, the great promise in combining Design Thinking and pro-active Healthcare Policy to further the implementation of Digital Medicine across different income groups, something I hope to continue working to address in my professional life.”

Dr Mathias Egermark sharing his achievements and reflections during his candidature as a NUS Executive Visiting Fellow.

The NUS Executive Visiting Fellows Programme

The NUS Executive Visiting Fellows programme brought together NUS faculty, researchers and the Visiting Fellow to enable multidisciplinary learning, which proved to be greatly beneficial for both Mathias and the teams involved. “We were able to combine teaching and learning from highly experienced and competent minds like Mathias and produce exceptional research outcomes in the form of two articles and a co-authored book chapter”, shared Professor Dean Ho, Provost’s Chair Professor and Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Design and Engineering and Director of The N.1 Institute for Health (N.1) and The Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM). “This programme gives accomplished professionals access to the most relevant knowledge within the fields that interest them. At the same time, Fellows enrich NUS by bringing their own experience and unique viewpoints to both classrooms and research projects,” chimed Professor Susanna Leong, Vice Provost for Masters' Programmes and Lifelong Education and Dean of the School of Continuing and Lifelong Education.

In addition, the relationships built during the time spent in NUS has generated new exciting collaborations between Roche and NUS entities such as NUS Business School, The Institute of Operations Research and Analytics (IORA), and College of Design and Engineering. “We are very excited to share that the partnership with Mathias will continue and we look forward to many more opportunities to collaborate with Roche in the future,” remarked Professor Ho.

“Within the field of engineering, there is merit in creating consistent results and a reliable system. The success of this programme is an example of the importance of trying new things and breaking new ground in order to create more value to society,” said Associate Professor Chai Kah Hin, Vice Dean at the Office of Masters' Programmes & Lifelong Education (OMPLLE)).

The NUS Executive Visiting Fellows programme, in providing a unique infusion of inspiration, unparalleled learning and applied knowledge for participants, is a testament to NUS’ dedication to provide inspiring and transforming education for individuals throughout their career.