SFU Outstanding Alumni Award – Emeritus Professor Hew Choy Leong

Emeritus Professor Hew Choy Leong has again been conferred another prestigious Outstanding Alumni Award, this time by SFU for his Academic Achievement.  Congratulations!

Watch the award presentation | LINK to Video

Simon Fraser University (SFU)

SFU was founded in 1965 and Professor Hew graduated as a chartered student (MSc) in 1967. The university now has more than 160,000 alumni over 140 countries, and is ranked Number 1 comprehensive University in Canada for the past 11 years.

Citation from the award

Hew Choy Leong has had a distinguished career as a scientist, professor, innovator, administrator and humanitarian. He is recognized internationally for his ground-breaking discovery of antifreeze proteins in several cold water fish. This breakthrough led Dr. Hew and his collaborators to develop a method to produce rapidly growing transgenic salmon—the only known genetically modified animal to be approved for sale to consumers in Canada and the United States—transforming the aquaculture industry and paving the way for future initiatives to enhance food production worldwide. Dr. Hew is one of the founding scientists in AquaBounty Technologies Inc., based in the United States, that is leading this initiative. Dr. Hew is now focusing on using a land-based recirculated aquaculture system for salmon farming in China and other Asian countries to promote environmental sustainability and food safety. Following positions at Memorial University and the University of Toronto, Dr. Hew was appointed department head of biological sciences at the National University of Singapore, transforming it into a vibrant, globally-respected and competitive research unit. He also built academic ties with universities in China and India, created an ASEAN University Network in Biology and established the Mechanobiology Institute, one of only five centres of research excellence in Singapore. Dr. Hew has held a number of international appointments and affiliations, supervised 65 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows and published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers. His community service extends from supporting Vietnamese refugees in Canada in the 1970s to the training of high school science teachers in Malaysia.