Rate My Professor Saw Swee Hock

Professor Saw Swee Hock (1931–2021) was a pioneering statistician, demographer, and academic leader renowned for his contributions to statistics in Southeast Asia. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1956 and Master of Arts in 1960 from the University of Malaya in Singapore, and his PhD in Statistics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, in 1963. Beginning his professional career as a statistician at the Department of Statistics, Government of Singapore in 1957, he advanced to Senior Lecturer in Statistics at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. Saw established the Department of Statistics at the University of Hong Kong as its founding Chair and Head from 1969 to 1971. He then joined the National University of Singapore as Professor of Statistics from 1975 to 1991, later becoming President's Honorary Professor of Statistics there. Additional roles included Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, and visiting professorships at Princeton, Stanford, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics. He held honorary professorships at the University of Hong Kong and Xiamen University, and was an Honorary University Fellow of HKU.

His scholarly work centered on statistical demography, population studies, economics, statistical finance, and financial economics, primarily concerning Southeast Asia. Saw authored or edited 49 books, 31 book chapters, and more than 110 journal articles. Notable publications include The Population of Malaysia (second edition), The Population of Singapore (third edition), Malaysia: Recent Trends and Challenges (co-editor), Managing Economic Crisis in Southeast Asia (editor), and ASEAN-China Economic Relations (editor). He pioneered statistics education across regional universities and served on key committees such as the United Nations Committee on Salary Adjustments, the International Statistical Institute, and as first Chairman of Singapore's National Statistical Commission. Among his accolades were the Honorary Fellowship of the London School of Economics in 2006, the LSE Distinguished Alumni Leadership Award in 2015, Honorary Doctor of Letters from NUS in 2015, NUS Outstanding Service Award, Singapore Public Service Medal (2013), and President's Award for Philanthropy (2013).