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| Qualification: | Doctor of Philosophy, Universiti Putra Malaysia ( Financial Economics ) Master of Economics, Universiti Putra Malaysia ( Financial Economics ) Bachelor of Economics (Hons), Universiti Putra Malaysia ( Financial Economics ) | ||||||||||||||||||
CAPSULE BIOGRAPHY
Prof. Dr. Choong Chee Keong is the Vice President (Student Development and Alumni relations), Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Malaysia. He was appointed as the Professorial Chair for the Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Dr Teh Hong Piow Chair in Banking and Finance in UTAR sponsored by Public Bank Berhad for the duration of 5 years. He has been the Chair since 1 September 2012. He obtained his Bachelor of Economics (Hons) and Master of Economics from the Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia, in 2000 and 2002, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in Economics (Financial Economics) from the Faculty of Economics and Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia (AACSB accredited university) in 2007.
Since joining UTAR on 13 January 2003, he is actively involved in research, covering the areas of private capital flows (foreign direct investment, aids, remittances), financial system (financial and banking institutions and development), and economic integration (ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), China’s Belt and Road Initiative (OBOR). He has more than 180 papers accepted/ published in national and international journals (including those ranked by Thomson Reuters (ISI) and SCOPUS), book chapters, conference and seminar proceedings. Notably, his works have been published in highly ranked journals such as The Singapore Economic Review, Energy Policy, Japan and the World Economy, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Empirical Economics, and Renewable Energy, just to name a few. Some of these works have benefited from funding and grants awarded by various ministries, public and private HEPs, including the Ministry of Education Malaysia, and Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) Malaysia. Since 2003, he has won a number of grants totally approximately half a million Ringgit Malaysia and they are; Fundamental Research Grant Scheme from Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), E-ScienceFund from MOSTI, UTAR Research Fund, and collaborative grants with public and private HEPs.
With his research performance, he was cited as one of the Top 10 Most Productive Malaysian Based Authors in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the period of 2001-2010, published by the Malaysian Citation Centre, Ministry of Higher Education in 2012. A significant number of his articles have been recognized as the Most Cited Article and/or Most Downloaded Papers in the well-known international journals. As of December 2017, the h-index and i-10 index of his research citations are 19 and 35, respectively with total citations of 1333 (based on Google Scholar).
Several developments exhibit the increasing national and international recognition of, and interest in his work. These include the appointment of visiting professor; adjunct course coordinator; external assessor; keynote speaker and guest speaker at public lectures; invited speaker/ lead discussant / session chair at national and international conferences/ seminars, and member of journal editorial board and review teams of key refereed journals. He was invited as a keynote speaker / guest speaker at a few public lectures / conferences / forums such as World University President Forum 2015 (Japan), Symposium / Conference on China-ASEAN / China-Malaysia Cooperation (China, 2015, 2016 and 2017), and Asian Management Conclave Board Directors Forum 2016 (Singapore). He is also a certified trainer endorsed by Human Resource Development Fund (Pembangunan Sumber Manusia Berhad, Ministry of Human Resources) who has been conducting a series of talks / workshops on ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), China’s Belt and Road Initiative (OBOR), effective performance management, just to name a few, to public listed companies / banks, higher education institutions, and public.
He has acquired a great deal of academic management experience based on the varied roles he played within the Faculty and University. These roles include Faculty Research Coordinator, Chairperson of Faculty R&D and Postgraduate Committee (FRDPC), Founding Chairperson of Centre for Economic Studies, Head of Programme (Postgraduate Degree Programmes), Deputy Dean (R&D and Postgraduate Programmes), Senate Representative (Application and Promotion Committee, Honorary Doctorates and Awards Committee, Judging Committee for UTAR Research Centre for Excellence Award, and UTAR Teaching Excellence Award), Conference Chairperson / advisor, and Dean of Faculty of Business and Finance, just to name a few.
He has also served in external validation and senior appointment panels and managed cross-national collaborative networks; namely, Committee member in Private Higher Education Cluster, Majlis Professor Negara (National Professors’ Council) in the Ministry of Education (Malaysia), Visiting Professor in the Centre for International Programmes, Aichi Gakuin University (Japan), and Scientific Committee Member for the Second International Conference on Accounting and Finance 2015 (Sri Lanka), External Assessor / Examiner (Australia, India and Malaysia).
During the past 13 years at UTAR, he has been engaging in teaching and managing a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate classes. The subjects that he has taught included Economics, Finance, Quantitative Techniques, Econometrics, Research Methods, and Business Research Methodology (master and doctoral levels). His teaching has been underpinned by a strong commitment to avail students of the benefits of his research works and to share appropriate emphasis on the subjects’ relevance to practice. He has received favourable feedback and evaluation scores on his teaching by students. The students’ feedbacks obtained have been very positive with an average score points of approximately 4.0 on a 5-point scale (with 5-point as the full point).
He has successfully supervised five (5) PhD students, one master student (by research) and 25 groups of undergraduate students. Currently, he is supervising more than 15 PhD students and two Master of Philosophy students. Besides, he was appointed as external / internal examiner (viva) for 16 PhD students, six Master of Science students and three Bachelor Honours students. These are students from universities such as USM, UUM, UPM, MMU, Asia e-University, Monash University Sunway Campus, UNIMAS, UMS and Bharathiar University (India).
During his appointment as a Faculty Dean (Oct 2011 – June 2016), he has actively inspired a research-based work culture among the faculty members. There has been a significant increase in the scholarly productivity within the Faculty. Together with a pool of dedicated staff, he has motivated the Faculty to increase their participation in various conferences and workshops. More importantly, he has successfully imbued a research culture in the Faculty by organising an international conference annually since 2013. His ability to excite faculty interest and abilities has significantly increased the Faculty’s proficiency in teaching and research. He has many ideas on research and higher education, and a vision of how to build a better academic institution and community. For instance, he has designed a few undergraduate and postgraduate (MBA, Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy) programmes in the areas of financial economics, banking and finance, finance and Corporate Management, which are aimed to produce a quality workforce for the need of the academic profession, community and country.
His biography is included in the 2009 and 2011 Premier Edition of Who's Who in the World, which profiles the most accomplished persons in 215 countries. Moreover, some of his articles are available at IDEAS (Internet Documents in Economics Access Service, http://ideas.repec.org/) and have attracted a couple of interested readers. As of August 2017, he ranked top 9% (out of 269 registered economists) and 11% (out of 5175 registered economists) in Malaysia and Asia, respectively. His article published in Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies has been cited as one of the Top Requested Papers in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 and recognized as the Most Cited Article since 2012 while another paper published in Japan and the World Economy has been cited as one of the Most Downloaded Papers and recognized as the Most Cited Article since 2010 and 2012, respectively.
Going forward, his research will continue to focus and emphasize on efforts at influencing policy and managerial thinking in ways that favour and stimulate greater participation in national building and development. It will also incorporate a commitment to greater team building and inter-institutional collaborations (local and oversea universities and industries) with the prime aim of getting more societal impact and outcome-based projects. As an academic who is self-driven, resourceful and passionate about education and innovation, he is primarily responsible for the creation of knowledge via academic or applied research, and the dissemination of knowledge through the development, presentation and administration of courses to inspire, engage and nurture the next generation of like-minded graduates and faculty members.