LKYSPP
Assistant Professor Reuben Ng is the first recipient from Singapore to win two international awards for innovative research in ageing and public policy.
First Award
Reuben won the prestigious 2022 Mather Innovative Research on Aging Award. Now in its 7th year,
Mather Institute created the awards to inspire evidence-based next practices that can improve the lives of older adults. Reuben made history by being the first from Singapore and Asia to win this prestigious global award since it began in 2015.
Mather Institute invited submissions by researchers from universities and organisations around the world for this year’s awards, which cover a variety of categories from Ageing in Place to Technological Advancements for Older Adults, and beyond. Reuben was honoured in the bronze award category of Senior Living Workforce based on his innovative approaches to behavioural and policy sciences. His applications of computational linguistics on the evolving narratives of older adults over two centuries resulted in several ‘home run’ papers, one of which has been cited 90 times more than papers in similar disciplines published in the same year. Findings from this
seminal research programme are cited widely in policy and legal documents, including by the World Health Organization in their 2021 Global Report on Ageism, and in American court judgements on fair housing and age discrimination.
“The Innovative Research on Aging Award honours Dr Reuben Ng for examining 21 decades of contemporary texts to track how perceptions of older adults differ when framed in terms of roles rather than age,” said Cate O’Brien, PhD, VP and Director, Mather Institute. “These awards honour excellent applied research with practical implications for the senior living industry. We believe Dr Reuben Ng’s
award-winning studies will spark ideas in senior living organisations around the world.”
In discussing the implications of the study, Reuben underscored that “Ageism is a global health crisis where older adults are viewed as a burden rather than a resource. To counteract ageism, highlight the important roles that older adults play at home and work such that age ceases to be the chief determinant in how older adults are viewed in society.”
Second Award
Reuben has been also named a
2023 Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science (APS)—the premier society of 25,000 behavioural scientists from over 80 countries. He is the only Singaporean to be honoured this year among other rising stars from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Chicago; and the first from the Lee Kuan Yew School to achieve this accolade since the award started over 10 years ago.
The APS Rising Star award recognises early career researchers whose
innovative work has already advanced the field and signals great potential for their continued contributions. Nominees were evaluated on seven criteria including excellence in research as exemplified by their publications, discoveries, innovations, demonstrated independence and
broader impact of their work.
In this second prestigious accolade, Reuben was recognised for his work that led to unprecedented insights around the impact of age-related policies on perceptions of older adults. Whereas earlier research has looked at how ageism is prevalent in policymaking, few studies have looked at how policies unintentionally promote ageism. By focusing on Singapore’s Pioneer Generation Policy—one of the largest financial packages aimed at honouring Singaporeans aged 65 and above—this study revealed that ageing policies unintentionally framed ageing in medicalised terms, and intensified negative stereotypes of older adults.
The study provided a framework for policymakers to mitigate the unintended consequences of ageing policies on ageism, even if initial policies were well-intentioned.
Read more about Reuben’s research in
Channel News Asia, NUS News,
The New York Times,
The Guardian, The Washington Post, and,
CNN.
Fellowship
Reuben was recently admitted to the inaugural cohort of the
International Strategy Forum Asia Fellowship, an initiative by former Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, through Schmidt Futures, that seeks to build a global network of the sharpest minds and most exceptional talent to solve the world’s pressing challenges. Reuben was also ranked in the
top 2 per cent of scientists globally based on research citation impact by Stanford University in 2022.