ASE students Alexis Goh and Tay Li Si win URECA awards for their research on insects and give ICUR presentations

Tay Li Si and Alexis Goh with their Awards.

Our warmest congratulations to Alexis Goh and Tay Li Si, both ASE 4th year ecology specialisation students and NTU President Research Scholars, who have won recognition for their excellent URECA research projects. They both conducted their research through the Tropical Ecology and Entomology (TEE) Lab, supervised by Asst Prof Eleanor Slade. 

Alexis Goh was awarded the URECA Undergraduate Research Excellence Award for the project “Are Nature Ways in the Way of Nature?", looking at Nature ways, that is, green corridors that aim to restore ecological connectivity across Singapore’s urban landscape. She aimed to unveil how nature ways can be further optimised to create more habitable spaces for crucial local pollinators and to build a future where coexistence between pollinators and anthropogenic development is enhanced in Singapore.

Tay Li Si was conferred the Certificate of Recognition for Commendable Research Accomplishments with Merit for his URECA study “Does Forest Restoration also Restore Arthropod Diversity and Community?”. The goal of Li Si’s study was to discover whether forest restoration efforts in Singapore are helping to restore the diversity and community structure of our arthropods (such as insects and spiders). The study is also the first in Singapore to identify and quantify the arthropods that live in soil and leaf litter on our forest floor, which is an accomplishment in itself. With this study he hopes to bring awareness to the many critters that live beneath our feet and also to shed light on how restoration may impacts arthropod diversity and communities.

Alexis and Li Si doing fieldwork.

In light of their excellent research achievements, both Alexis and Li Si were invited to pitch and communicate their research at the 2021 International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR), which involved 595 international students from 14 institutions comprising 12 countries. You can find both of their presentations on the TEE website:

Alexis' ICUR Presentation and more on her study

Li Si's ICUR Presentation and more on his study

Nature Finds A Way — Reflections, by Alexis Goh