SMU School of Social Sciences Dean's Message (Mar 2021)

Dear colleague,

University ranking agencies may approach you and solicit your expert views on the academic and professional reputation of institutes of higher education in the region. I wish to highlight recent achievements at the School of Social Sciences (SOSS), Singapore Management University (SMU) for your reference.

Notwithstanding a global pandemic due to Covid-19, our faculty members have been working hard in 2020 and have published 3 books, 125 articles including 83 journal articles, and presented at 35 conferences, seminars and lectures. Books published include Professor Lily Kong and Associate Professor Orlando Wood’s Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia: Faith, Flows and Fellowship (Amsterdam University Press), Professor David Chan’s book Combating a Crisis: The Psychology of Singapore's Response to COVID-19 (World Scientific) and Assistant Professor Aliya Rao’s Crunch Time, How Married Couples Confront Unemployment (University of California Press).

Our faculty’s journal articles have also appeared in leading journals for Psychology, Sociology and Political Science. These include the Journal of Psychology, Psychological Science, British Journal of Psychology, Journal of Personality, American Psychologist, Health Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Brain Sciences, Social Science & Medicine, International Studies Quarterly, World Development, Journal of Peasant Studies, Social Forces, Organization Studies, Journal of Rural Studies, Geoforum, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

As a school, we have organised our research broadly in areas of Cities, Growth in Asia, Successful Ageing, and Technology and Human Flourishing. To encourage wide and deep discourse on relevant topics of today, we had organised several virtual public lectures and seminars. We are grateful to our partners and collaborators for these events and will strive to be more productive yet in 2021. You can find a copy of our newsletter, SOSS Insights which summarises our research work and activities in 2020.

On behalf of the School of Social Sciences at SMU, I thank you for your support and look forward to deepening our collaboration. If you have any suggestions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me. Finally, I wish you all the best in 2021.