NTU PPF 2018-2020

Dorrain Low

Dr. Dorrain Low is currently a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). Her research is focused on how diet and lifestyle can play a role in delaying the onset or halting the progression of age-related health disorders. Dr. Low completed her undergraduate and PhD at the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia), characterising the effect of sequential digestive processes on how nutrients are released from whole food structures in the gastrointestinal tract, including gut microbiota-mediated polyphenol biotransformations. This analytical expertise was applied to human health when she was awarded the AgreenSkills+ Young Incoming Fellowship (Marie-Curie Programme) to undertake a postdoctoral position in the European DCogPlast Consortium at the French National Research Institute of Agricultural Research (France), where she identified a set of 22-metabolite serum signature, including six food-derived metabolites, associated with cognitive decline in a prospective ageing (Three-City) cohort study.

Genevieve Lau

Dr Genevieve Lau is a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, NTU. She obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), where she developed new materials for dye-sensitized solar cells and other solar fuel devices. Prior to joining NTU, Genevieve was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale-NUS College, and she also briefly held an academic guest position at ETH Zürich. At NTU, Genevieve is establishing a new laboratory for nanoscale metal 3D printing, and her research interests include, amongst others, materials chemistry, electrocatalysis, and surface science.

Jerry Zhu Jinlin

Jinlin Zhu received his PhD degree in Control Science and Engineering from Zhejiang University, China, in 2016. He was then the postdoctoral visiting scholar with the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Currently, he is the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests include machine learning, industrial process modelling, monitoring and fault diagnosis.

Karen Helen Lythgoe

Karen Lythgoe is a seismologist who uses seismic data to understand Earth’s structure and processes. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge on the structure and dynamics of the Earth’s inner core. Karen then joined the seismic imaging research and development team at BP in London. She holds a MSci in geophysics from the University of Leeds.

Maiko Uesaki

After graduating from the University of York with a BSc in Psychology, Dr Maiko Uesaki did her PhD at Kyoto University. During her PhD, she has also spent time at Charité – Universitätsmediz in Berlin, and Stanford University. She then worked at Ritsumeikan University, before joining the Visual Perception Lab in 2018.

Nguyen Ta Toan Khoa

Dr Khoa Nguyen received his PhD degree in cryptography in 2014, at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. His research interests are in the area of post-quantum cryptography, especially the design and analysis of privacy-preserving cryptographic protocols from lattices and codes. He has published 28 papers, 13 of which are at prestigious conferences held by the International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR), such as EUROCRYPT, CRYPTO, ASIACRYPT and PKC. According to the IACR Publishing Statistics, Khoa Nguyen is ranked in the Top 100 cryptography researchers of the whole world in the period 2015--2019, in terms of publications at IACR conferences. He has been co-supervising 4 PhD students (2 of which have graduated), and has been serving in the Program Committees of 15 international conferences in cryptography and security, including ASIACRYPT 2017, 2018 and 2019. Recently, he was appointed as a Program Co-Chair of ProvSec 2020 – the 14th International Conference on Provable and Practical Security.

Olusegun K. Abass

Dr. Olusegun K. Abass is an Environmental Engineer and a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University. He is also an elected fellow of the CAS-TWAS international fellowship based in China and Italy. He received his PhD in Environmental Engineering at the famous Chinese Academy of Science, China. His current research focuses on development of novel multifunctional nanomaterials and 2D quantum-based membranes for environmental applications. Currently, he strives to bridge the gap between advances in materials sciences and their application in various environmental matrices. His futuristic idea is to create an enabling environment for an all-inclusive human health and well-being.

Parth Vashishtha

Dr Parth Vashishtha is currently a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow (PPF) at School of Materials Science and Engineering, NTU. His current research project is focused on synthesising novel lead free perovskite nanocrystals in order to build thin film optoelectronic devices. He started his research career at University of South Australia, where he completed his Masters project on non-toxic quantum dots with Prof Thomas Nann. He then worked in the group of Prof Jonathan E. Halpert on “Nanostructured Metal Halide Perovskites for Optoelectronic Applications” and attained his PhD at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He also worked on Si quantum dots in Prof Jonathan Veinot’s group at University of Alberta, Canada as an Academic Visiting Researcher. He is currently in collaboration with University of Warwick, HKUST, and University of Alberta for his current research projects.

Samuel Perks

Samuel Perks works at the intersection of world-literary studies, postcolonial studies, and the environmental humanities. His work to date has explored historical fiction, representations of coal in Joseph Conrad’s fiction, and Singapore literature and the Garden City drive. His current research examines global cities in the field of world-literature, the dynamics of choice in the work of Teo Hsu-Ming, and transnational entrepreneur narratives. Samuel is the chair of the Global Cities in World Literature seminar series, which features international speakers from various fields. Past speakers include John McLeod, Sharae Deckard, Loh Kah Seng, and Ben Derudder. He teaches the undergraduate course HL3041 Global Cities in World Literature in the School of Humanities, and supervises FYPs interested in postcolonial and Singapore literature. He has previously taught Postcolonial Literature, Renaissance Literature, Poetry, and Writing Critically at the University of Leeds, where he has also given lectures on the Writing the Environment module.

Serafino Teseo

Serafino Teseo is a behavioural ecologist specialized in insect social evolution. He has obtained his PhD in Animal Behaviour at Paris 13 University, France, in 2013, working on ants. Before joining NTU, he worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and then at Paris Diderot University. As a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, he explores the role of gut microbes in social behaviour using ants as a model system. His research integrates classic experimental approaches to animal behaviour with state-of-the-art techniques to measure the emergent properties of interactive networks of individuals. He believes that using mini-brained highly social organisms such as ants may help understanding how gut symbiotic microbes affects socially relevant behaviours in all animals, including humans.