Professor M. L. Dennis Wong is the Regional Provost and Group Chief Executive Officer (East and Southeast Asia) for Newcastle University, U.K., a role he commenced in September 2023. In this capacity, Professor Wong provides strategic leadership for the University's activities and the development of its overseas campuses and wider engagement across the ASEAN region. He chairs the Board of Directors for NU International Singapore Pte Ltd & NEWRIIS Pte Ltd and serves as a Director for NUMed Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. and Newcastle Medical Clinic Sdn. Bhd.

Academic Leadership & Career

A seasoned leader in the field of Transnational Education (TNE), Professor Wong has an extensive background in senior academic management across multiple international branch campuses:

• Deputy Vice-Principal / Deputy Provost, Heriot-Watt University Malaysia (2016 – 2023): As the inaugural Deputy Provost, he oversaw academic operations, quality assurance, and led significant strategic initiatives, including being a project lead for the Heriot-Watt Global College.
• Dean, Faculty of Engineering, Computing & Science, Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus (2012 – 2016): During his tenure as Dean, he provided strategic leadership in academic and research endeavors, leading the faculty through multiple successful professional accreditation exercises (Engineers Australia, EAC) and driving the University to achieve a MyRA 3 stars rating. He previously served as an Associate Head of Engineering at the same campus.
• Associate Professor, Xi’an Jiao Tong-Liverpool University (2011 – 2012): He held an expatriate academic staff position at the Sino-Anglo cooperation university.

Professional Leadership & Memberships

Professor Wong is a highly engaged leader in the global engineering community:

• He is the current President of Engineers Australia Malaysia Chapter (2023/24).
• He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia (FIEAust) and a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng).
• He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and a Chartered Engineer (CEng) with the Engineering Council UK.
• He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineering (IEEE), and served as the inaugural Chair for the IEEE Sarawak Subsection (2016–2017) and a past Vice Chair for the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Malaysia Chapter.

Research Interests & Education

Professor Wong’s research interests lie primarily in statistical signal processing and pattern classification, machine condition monitoring, and VLSI Design for digital signal processing. He has been involved in research grants as both Principal and Co-Investigator, with funded projects in areas such as secure biomedical media authentication and high-performance network video recording.

He received his BEng (Hons) in Electronics and Communication Engineering (1999) and his PhD in Signal Processing (2004) from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, The University of Liverpool, U.K..