NUS Presidential Young Professor

Ying Kai LOH was born in Singapore. He found his passion for the chemistry of main group elements in the lab of Prof. Rei Kinjo during his undergraduate studies at Nanyang Technological University. There he made his first contribution to the field with the isolation of a rare species containing a B=O bond. Later he joined the lab of Prof. Dragoslav Vidović for his Final Year Project; and the isolation of the elusive doubly oxidized PN molecule led him to be awarded the Gold Medal Winner of the Global Undergraduate Awards − also known as “Junior Nobel Prize”.

In 2016, Ying Kai was awarded the prestigious National Science Scholarship (NSS), which allowed him to pursue his DPhil studies with Prof. Simon Aldridge at the University of Oxford. There he isolated other highly reactive main group species ⎻ from a carbon superelectrophile to heavy dioxycarbenes (based on Si, Ge, Sn, Pb), a lighter boracarbonyl, and a radical cation derived from Thiele’s hydrocarbon.

Ying Kai joined the lab of Prof. Guy Bertrand at the University of California San Diego as a Postdoctoral Scholar, supported by the NSS scholarship. There he focused his attention on carbon ⎻ the central element of life ⎻ and developed a next-generation carbene, which can act as a platform to access completely new octet-defying species.

In 2023, Ying Kai returned to Singapore to serve his bond at A*STAR as a Scientist at the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE). Currently he is working with Dr. Jason Yuan Chong Lim, investigating the use of polymer skeletal editing for upcycling waste plastics like polyethylene.

Ying Kai was recently awarded the prestigious National Research Foundation Fellowship, and he will begin his independent career at the Department of Chemistry at the National University of Singapore (NUS) as Presidential Young Professor in July 2025.

University of California San Diego
Postdoctoral Scholar
Advisor ⎻ Prof. Guy Bertrand
2021 ⎻ 2023

University of Oxford
DPhil in Inorganic Chemistry
Advisor ⎻ Prof. Simon Aldridge
2016 ⎻ 2020

Nanyang Technological University
BSc (Hons) in Chemistry
Advisor (FYP) ⎻ Prof. Dragoslav Vidović
Advisor (URECA) ⎻ Prof. Rei Kinjo
2011 ⎻ 2015