IULTCS International Congress announced the presenter of the ”Heidemann Lecture”

Professor Kheng Lim Goh

Presenter of the ”Heidemann Lecture” announced: Prof Kheng Lim Goh of Newcastle University in Singapore (NUIS)

Professor Kheng Lim Goh, research leader of the “Advanced Composite Research Group” at the Newcastle University in Singapore and Newcastle Research and Innovation Institute Singapore (NewRIIS) and associated Professor to these institutions, will be the presenter of the “Heidemann Lecture” thereby opening the scientific programme of the XXXV. IULTCS Congress on the morning of June 26th 2019 in Dresden.

Prof Kheng Lim Goh of Newcastle University in Singapore (NUIS) to hold Heidemann Lecture

The Scientific Committee announced the presenter of the “Heidemann Lecture” of the 2019 IULTCS International Congress: Prof Kheng Lim Goh.

The Heidemann Lecture is a keynote presentation that is held in memory of Professor Dr. Eckhardt Heidemann (1925-1999). Heidemann made significant practical contributions to the science of leather manufacture and he held a lifelong interest in the structure and properties of the collagen molecule. It is typical for the Host Society to invite a high profile guest lecturer to make this keynote presentation on a collagen related topic. Traditionally, the Heidemann Lecture is a plenary lecture of 30 – 45 minutes usually scheduled during the first morning of the Congress and as the opening lecture of the Scientific Programme. 

Dr Goh has a long-standing interest in composite materials. His research aims to understand the physical properties of natural and synthetic composite materials and to use this understanding to engineer nanocomposite materials, as well as to repair damaged composite materials. He is one of the principal proponents for studying how collagen fibrils reinforce collagenous connective tissues based on the concept of stress transfer mechanism in fibre reinforcing composite materials. More significantly, he has developed a conceptual composite material framework for studying the mechanics of connective tissue that underpins the stress transfer mechanism at various hierarchical levels of the tissue. For simplicity, Dr Goh likens the collagenous connective tissue to the “infinity mirror”, whereby the highest hierarchical level of the tissue corresponds to the original two mirrors in parallel, on opposite sides of a room, and the subsequent lower levels correspond to the multiplication of mirror images, that seemingly stretch out to infinity. The structure-function understanding involves the study of mechanisms that enable the transfer of load from one structural component to another within the tissue, as well as from one level to the next. Dr Goh has applied the conceptual framework to reveal new insights in tendons, ligaments, muscles, skin as well as biomaterials made from decellularized tissues, e.g. derived from marine connective tissues.

Prof is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Physicist with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (UK) and Institute of Physics (UK), respectively. Dr Goh holds the position of Associate Professor at Newcastle Research and Innovation Institute (NewRIIS) and Newcastle University in Singapore (NUIS). NewRIIS is a newly established research institute of NUIS, which is affiliated to the Faculty of Science, Agriculture & Engineering, Newcastle University (UK). Dr Goh is also former (founding) Director of Operations (2011-2016) of the Mechanical Design & Manufacturing Degree programme at NUIS.

Currently, Dr Goh is the research group leader of the Advanced Composites Research Group at NewRIIS. The Group collaborates extensively with multi-disciplinary/international researchers at national research institutes and higher learning institutes in Singapore as well as overseas ones, namely INRA, Manchester University, Monash University and DTU. Dr Goh is dedicated to training the next generation of research scientists in composite materials by providing innovative learning environments for postgraduate research students under his charge at his research group.

Dr Goh has authored and co-authored over 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals, books and conferences that cover a wide range of composite materials, together with international collaborators from Argentina, Canada, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and UK. Dr Goh is also the author of the book entitled ‘Discontinuous-fibre reinforced composites: fundamentals of stress transfer and fracture mechanics’ published by Springer in 2017.

Dr Goh was a recipient of an EU Framework Research Fellowship, which provided him the opportunity to work on a three-year EU Framework V programme to study the mechanisms of ageing in connective tissue. The programme, led by Prof Peter Purslow and Dr Richard Taylor, involved a consortium of 5 institutions, namely Cardiff University, Manchester University, INRA, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (Denmark), and Stirling University. Before joining Newcastle University, Dr Goh has held the post of Assistant Professor in Bioengineering at Nanyang Technological University and Senior Lecturer in mechanical engineering at Monash University.

Dr Goh received his BSc (Physics, Honours) degree in 1992 from National University of Singapore. He then went on to pursue his MSc degree (at National University of Singapore) in bioengineering-under the supervision of Dr Soo-Chin Liew and Prof Bruce Hasegawa (University of California San Francisco), followed by PhD (at University of Aberdeen scholarship) at the Biomechanics and Biomaterials research group advised by Prof David Hukins, Prof Richard Aspden and Dr Kath Mathias. He received his PhD (Biomedical Physics & Bioengineering) degree in 2002.

The Scientific Committee is extremely pleased that Professor Goh is following the invitation to Dresden and is taking an active part in the congress in sharing his extensive knowledge and experience with our industry.

For more information IULTCS International Congress:  https://iultcs2019.org