Professor Subra Suresh is an eminent American scientist, engineer and entrepreneur wit​h decades of distinguished and impactful leadership in academia, industry and government. He was appointed president of NTU in July 2017 and began his tenure on 1st January, 2018. In recognition of his scholarly and scientific achievements in research, the NTU Board of Trustees also selected him as the inaugural Distinguished University Professor, the highest honour given to a faculty member at NTU.

He was the ninth President of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) from 2013 to 2017. Before that, he served as Director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) from 2010 to 2013, and Dean of the School of Engineering from 2007 to 2010 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was a faculty member for two decades.