Our People

Professor Victoria Leong 
Full Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 
Centre Director

Prof Shirley Ho 

Prof Lim Kah Leong

Associate Vice President of Research (Biomedical and Life Sciences), President’s Office
NTU Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine

Expertise: Neuroscience and Neurodegeneration

Professor Lim Kah Leong serves as the Associate Vice President of Research (Biomedical and Life Sciences) at NTU and holds the President’s Chair in Translational Neuroscience. Working closely with the Vice President of Research and the Senior Vice President (Health and Life Sciences), he aims to advance research excellence in Biomedical and Life Sciences. From 2019 to 2023, he was the Vice Dean for Research at LKCMedicine.

Professor Lim earned his Ph.D. from the Singapore Institute of Molecular & Cell Biology in 1999, followed by postdoctoral training at in neuroscience research at Harvard Medical School (2000-2001) and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (2001-2002).

Before joining LKCMedicine, he led the Department of Physiology at the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and was the Deputy Research Director at the National Neuroscience Institute. Professor Lim has received several prestigious awards, including the President’s Science Award (Team) and the Singapore Neuroscience Association Distinguished Neuroscientist Award. He was recently elected as a Fellow of the Singapore National Academy of Science.

A/Prof Chan Yoke Hwee

Chairman of the Medical Board, Clinical Associate Professor
Kandang Kerbau Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH)

Expertise: Children’s Intensive Care

Associate Professor Yoke Hwee Chan is the Chair, Medical Board at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Associate Dean (KKH) at the Duke-NUS School of Medicine, Singapore. She was a core member of the Transformation of Pediatric Services Taskforce commissioned by the Ministry of Health, Singapore and a member of the Regional Health Systems at the Singapore Health Services.

As a pediatric intensive care physician by training, she has a special interest in paediatric home ventilation and played an important role in the establishment of the paediatric homecare programme in Singapore and directed the KKH Home Care Program from 2006 to 2017, benefiting over 1500 technology dependent children. She also established the Neonatal-Pediatric Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Programme at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Her interests include extracorporeal therapies in the ICU, such as continuous renal replacement therapies and ECMO, as well as patient safety and clinical quality.

As a paediatrician, she has significantly contributed to the shaping of the Maternal and Child Health efforts in Singapore and served as a workgroup member of the National Task Force on Child and Maternal Health and Wellbeing.  She also leads the Office of Population Health at KKH and is the co-chair of the NHG Women’s and Children’s Health Steering Committee. 

A/Prof John Wong Chee Meng

Associate Professor & Senior Consultant Psychiatrist
Department of Psychological Medicine, National University of Singapore

Expertise: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

A/Prof John Wong is a Senior Consultant Psychiatrist at the National University Hospital (NUH), Department of Psychological Medicine and past-President of the College of Psychiatrists, Academy of Medicine, Singapore. He also chairs the prestigious Lin Jo Yan and Yeo Boon Khim Professorship in Mental Health and Neuroscience and directs the NUS Mind Science Center, focusing on cognitive and emotional resilience continuum through community-based programs and technology innovation.

Specializing in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, General and Trauma Psychiatry, A/Prof Wong received his MBBS from NUS and trained at the Singapore National University Hospital, Institute of Mental Health, and Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He was a Visiting Fellow in Trauma Psychiatry the Uniformed Service University F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, USA and Child Psychiatry Fellowship at the Guy’s Hospital Bloomfield Clinic and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London.

His interests include Trauma Psychiatry, ADHD, Autism, and Developmental Psychiatry. A/Prof Wong is a distinguished clinician with expertise in psychiatry, community care, medical education, and organizational management. He has contributed significantly to psychiatry training and has won many awards and honors at the institutional and national level. Some of his notable past achievements include Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence for AY 2013/2014, the Lee Kim Tah Lecture Award in 2016, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) International Distinguished Fellow 2025.

Prof Casey Lew-Williams

Professor
Department of Psychology, Princeton University US

Expertise: Developmental Science, Communication and Language Learning

Casey Lew-Williams is Professor and Department Chair in Psychology at Princeton University, with affiliations in Neuroscience, Linguistics, and Princeton’s AI Lab. He directs the Princeton Baby Lab, where his students and postdocs study how young children learn from the dynamics of their communicative environments. They use a combination of experimental, descriptive, computational, and social neuroscience approaches to study language learning in typical learners, children facing adversity, and children growing up bilingual. He is chief editor of Frontiers for Young Minds (a science journal for kids) and co-founder of ManyBabies (a global team of 685 developmental scientists).

Dr Lorena Santamaria Covarrubias

Senior Research Fellow

Research Interests: Neurophysiological Signals (EEG, ECG), Early detection on infant at risk and personalised interventions.

I gained an engineering and master's degree at Cantabria University (Spain) and my PhD at Warwick University (UK). Worked with Professor Leong at Cambridge University (UK) on developmental neuroscience and with Professor Lewis at CUBRIC (UK) on sleep, learning and creativity. Since 2023, I am working with Professor Victoria Leong at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) as a senior research fellow using machine learning based approaches to understand the influence of mother-infant dynamics on the child's cognitive development. Outside academia, I like to spend my time doing sports (Futsal, CrossFit, Hiking) and travelling around the world.

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Dr. George Rafael Domenikos

Research Assistant Professor

Research Interests: To focus on utilising mathematical modelling and artificial intelligence, and developing the new field of thermos-informatics, which combines thermodynamics and statistics.

I was a Research Associate in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, where I developed innovative mathematical modelling methods for behavioural and neuroscientific systems. I completed my PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens, with a focus on statistical thermodynamics, and received the Edward F. Obert Award in 2022 from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for an outstanding achievement in thermodynamics. I have collaborated extensively with universities worldwide, including the University of Central Florida and Stevens Institute of Technology.

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Dr Owens Cullen Bryant

Senior Research Fellow

Research Interests: Early childhood development, neural mechanisms of learning and memory, applications for reducing cognitive bias in assessment tools.

I have conducted research in behavioural neuroscience, focusing on procedural and declarative learning mechanisms. My research experience spans working with children, elite athletes, and clinical populations. Currently, I am interested in leveraging scalable research technology to create broader impacts. In my current role, I aim to transition our understanding of parent-child sociometric models for assessing developmental trajectories into the commercial space.

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