The NUS Achievement Awards 2026 honoured 341 students and graduates from the Class of 2026, and the list reads less like a report card and more like a spread of what students actually do outside lectures. The National University of Singapore announced the results on 11 November 2026, after the ceremony on 25 October. It was presided over by Deputy President (Academic Affairs) and Provost Professor Aaron Thean.
These awards do not look at grades. They recognise leadership, competitions, community service, the arts and sport, which is the side of university life that rarely makes it onto a transcript.
How many awards were given out at the NUS Achievement Awards 2026
NUS gave out 11 Distinctions, 24 Merits, 57 Commendations and six Recognitions across seven categories. Distinction is the top tier, so only a handful of individuals and groups walked away with one.
Categories named in NUS’s announcement include Leadership, Competitions (General), Community Service, and a set of arts awards: Performing Arts Student of the Year, Arts Production of the Year, Arts Group of the Year and Original Artistic Work of the Year. There is also the President’s Sports Award of the Year.
Distinctions for leadership and robotics
Isaac Chin, a final-year Data Science and Analytics student and president of the Sheares Hall JCRC, won a Distinction in Leadership. He and his vice president built an AI-powered calculator for co-curricular activity (CCA) points, used by more than 500 hall residents across over 70 CCAs. He also developed a simulator to test how a proposed policy change would affect residents before it is rolled out.
In Competitions (General), Bumblebee Autonomous Systems took a Distinction after winning RoboSub 2025, an international competition for autonomous underwater vehicles. The 23-member team used AI and machine learning so its robots could identify and respond to targets, then open-sourced its software stack for others to build on.
Community service and the arts
Project Healthy to Thrive, led by Duke-NUS Medical School students, received a Merit in Community Service. The team offered free health screenings and education to more than 450 migrant workers, working with the Ministry of Manpower’s Assurance, Care and Engagement Group, Project Brother Bear and local doctors. Project Director Gini Wong Wei Wen said the project does not only detect disease but also helps workers take ownership of their health.
Tan Yu Hao, a Year 2 Computing student, got a Merit for Performing Arts Student of the Year. Over 12 weeks he taught choreography to pre-frail older adults at Lions Befrienders’ Active Ageing Centres through the NUS Community Dance Programme, adapting the moves for different levels of mobility. He also represented NUS Dance Blast!, which won a Distinction for Arts Production of the Year.
The arts collective n:ow arts had the busiest night in that category. It collected a Distinction for Original Artistic Work of the Year, plus Merits for Arts Group of the Year and Arts Production of the Year. Another Merit for Arts Production went to NUS Indian Dance and NUS Dikir Barat for Antara Dua: Between Two Choices, A Destiny Prevails, a cross-cultural piece shown at NUS Arts Festival 2026 that mixed Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Dikir Barat and Asian folklore.
Table tennis takes the sports award
The President’s Sports Award of the Year went to NUS Table Tennis. Across three consecutive years, the team won 10 of 12 titles at the Singapore University Games and the Institute-Varsity-Polytechnic (IVP) Games, including a men’s and women’s double at IVP 2024 and 2025. It also ran a Learn-to-Play programme, the Inter-College Games and the NUS120 Homecoming.
Former Women’s Team Captain Jade Ng, a Year 3 Business Analytics student, said the award motivates the team to keep striving. Not bad for a sport many of us last played at a void deck or a community club.
Why it matters if you are choosing a university
If you or your child is weighing up university options, this is a useful look at what a campus offers beyond the course list. Residential halls, student-led projects, community programmes and competitive teams all showed up in this year’s winners.
NUS has published the full announcement, with photos of each award category, on its newsroom at news.nus.edu.sg.
