Professor TAN THIAM SOON graduated from University of Canterbury (New Zealand) with a BEng (1st Class Hons) in 1979, and subsequently obtained his MS (1982) and PhD (1985) from California Institute of Technology. He joined the Department in 1986.

Professor Tan is presently the Vice-Provost (Education), a position he has held since 1 Jan 2008. He had held positions of Dean of Admissions (2005-2007), Vice-Dean (Undergraduate Programs, 2003-2004), Sub-Dean (1998), Director of the Centre for Soft Ground Engineering (1997-2001) and Director of the Faculty's Large Scale Systems Laboratory (1999-2000). Professor Tan currently teaches courses related to Theoretical Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering. His main areas of research interest are deep excavation, soil improvement, land reclamation and soil characterization. He has given invited or keynote lectures at a number of international conferences and received the ASTM's C.A. Hogentogler Award for 2007.

Professor Tan is a registered Professional Engineer (Geotechnical) in Singapore and has been involved in numerous consulting jobs in Singapore concerning deep excavation, land reclamation and other geotechnical problems.

Honors & Awards
Keynote Lecture, at 2nd International Symposium on Contaminated Sediments (Quebec), 2003
Theme Lecturer, International Workshop on Foundation Design Codes and Soil Investigation, April 2001, Kamakura, Japan
Keynote Lecturer, International Conference on Compression and Consolidation of Clayey Soils, May, 1995, Hiroshima, Japan
Special Lecturer, 12th Southeast Asian Geotechnical Conference, May 1996, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia