Virginia Cha, PhD - Biography

Professor Virginia Cha is a highly sought-after educator of innovation and entrepreneurship. She has a joint appointment as Adjunct Professor at the NUS Business School and NUS College of Design & Engineering. In addition, she also spearheads curriculum design at the Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Design (SMART) for their research commercialisation programmes.

In her multi-faceted industry and academic career spanning more than four decades across many countries, Virginia has been in many different roles in technology, executive management, and technology commercialisation. She was also the founder or sole founder and CEO of multiple venture-funded, high-tech companies in Singapore and China, with listings on NASDAQ and HKSE.

Virginia began her Third Transition when a chance meeting with the late Professor Phil Anderson of INSEAD inspired her to step away from a lifetime business and technology executive career. It led her to enrol in NUS to pursue a PhD, not as a career transition choice, but as an intellectual pursuit. She received her PhD five years later in her early fifties and has since found renewed joy, purpose, and new relationships as an Adjunct Professor in multiple educational institutions.

She is now spearheading the DSFP for accomplished senior leaders in Asia to navigate their Third Transition with clarity and confidence.

Paul Yong - Biography

Paul Yong is the Associate Director of SCALE-Global at NUS. With over two decades of professional experience in higher education and international business, Paul has held various leadership roles at renowned institutions and organizations.

At NUS, Paul oversees the Distinguished Senior Fellowship Programme (DSFP) and previously led the NUS Executive MBA and UCLA-NUS EMBA programs. He has a proven track record in program development, strategy, and fostering cross-cultural collaboration in education.

Before joining NUS, Paul served as Deputy Director at Nanyang Technological University, where he contributed to financial and educational strategy initiatives. His extensive international experience includes his tenure as Director of Asian Programs at the University at Buffalo and his entrepreneurial leadership as the Founder and Managing Director of Verdenbridge International.

Andrew Murray Bailey - Biography

Andrew M. Bailey is a Professor of Philosophy at NUS. He teaches classes and writes about bitcoin and money, human nature, and philosophy of religion. Formerly a founding faculty member of Yale-NUS College, he was the only person in the history of the College to receive its highest awards for both research and teaching.

Michael Chee Wei Liang, MBBS - Biography

Professor Chee Wei Liang Michael Chee MBBS, FRCP(Edin) is Professor and Director of the Centre for Sleep and Cognition at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He is a pioneer clinician scientist in Singapore who has won the National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award (2009) and is a three time award winner of the National Medical Research Council’s top tier Clinician Scientist STaR award (2007, 2013, 2019). His is an inaugural Fellow of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping.

His work on sleep over the last 20 years has focussed on characterizing and alleviating the negative impact of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance, wellbeing and health using innovative cognitive tests as well as a wide range of instrumentation including EEG, MRI, wearable devices, and ecological momentary assessments.

Associate Professor Chester Lee Drum, MD PhD - Biography

Associate Professor Chester Drum is a senior consultant cardiologist at the National University Hospital and a faculty of the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS. He received an M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and completed his cardiology fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He then worked with Institute Professor Robert Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists and was co-director of the MIT Centre for Biomedical Innovation.

After moving to Singapore, Chester has been a recipient of multiple Clinician Scientist Awards from the NMRC and works closely with the Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) to commercialize promising medical technologies.

Chester has over 20 years of clinical experience in managed care, private, public and academic healthcare settings in both the US and Asia. His current research focuses on the overlap of digital medicine, deep phenotyping and the development of new therapies using a unique overalp of nanotechnology and protein engineering. He is the holder of multiple patents and has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Nature.

Joshua J Gooley - Biography

Dr. Joshua J Gooley is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program at Duke-NUS Medical School. He is Principal Investigator of the Chronobiology and Sleep Laboratory, located in the SingHealth Investigational Medicine Unit at Singapore General Hospital. Dr. Gooley’s research program at Duke-NUS focuses on understanding effects of sleep and circadian rhythms on cognition and health.

Dennis Khoo - Biography

Dr Dennis Khoo was a senior banker who had previously run billion dollar businesses as head of consumer bank for Standard Chartered Bank and UOB in Singapore. He was responsible for many of the innovations in the consumer banking industry in Singapore. He has developed one of the first holistic approaches to business transformation that surfaces tradeoffs between the customer, business, capabilities and people & leadership dimensions to help incumbents improve their transformation success.

Dennis is a sought after lecturer and trainer, and is involved in the LYT program at the NUS School of Business MBA and the Enterprise Leadership Training for SMEs in collaboration with NUS and the LinHart Group. He has also taught the Corporate Strategy course for the NUS MBA program as adjunct Professor.

Dennis holds a degree in Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration from the National University of Singapore. He also has a Masters in Business Research and a PhD in Business Administration (for his work in international business) from the University of Western Australia.

As a WABC (Worldwide Association of Business Coaches) Registered Corporate Coach, he is also a certified Gallup Strengths coach, and accredited in Harrison Assessment Employee Development. Dennis has mentored and coached many successful executives in his long career.

Lai Ah Eng - Biography

Dr Lai Ah Eng is an anthropologist specialising in migration, multiculturalism, religion, heritage and gender studies. She has conducted extensive research on ethnic relations and has published works such as Meanings of Multiethnicity in Singapore, Beyond Rituals and Riots: Ethnic Pluralism and Social Cohesion in Singapore, and Religious Diversity in Singapore. She has served on national research projects and boards, contributing significantly to social policy development.

Lam Khee Poh, PhD - Biography

Professor Lam Khee Poh is an educator, researcher, architect, and consultant specialising in life-cycle building information modeling and computational design support systems for total building performance analysis and building diagnostics. He has served as a building performance consultant for several major award-winning projects and certified green buildings in Singapore, China, and the USA.

Associate Professor Jeremy Lim - Biography

Associate Professor Jeremy Lim is the co-founder and CEO of AMiLi, the first dedicated gut microbiome full service company in Southeast Asia. Trained in surgery and public health, he attained various post graduate qualifications including membership in the Royal College of Surgeons (Edinburgh), masters of medicine (NUS) and masters of public health (Johns Hopkins, as a Fulbright scholarship awardee). He was an inaugural fellow of the Asia Society A21 young leaders programme in 2006.

Jeremy has a special interest in ways that technology can increase health equity and access to care. He advises a number of health technology companies and programmes in the region and globally. He also serves on the boards of/advises various charities and social enterprises, including HealthServe, Dover Park Hospice and SNTC. Jeremy has worked in executive roles in both public and private sectors, including time spent as a senior official in the Ministry of Health, Singapore and was prior to AMiLi, founding partner of global consultancy Oliver Wyman’s Asia health and life sciences practice (2013).

Associate Professor Loy Hui Chieh - Biography

Associate Professor Loy Hui Chieh is from the Department of Philosophy at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He is currently the Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) and Master of Residences for NUS College, the honors college of the National University of Singapore. A/P Loy is also the Chair of the NUS Philosophy, Politics, and Economics joint program committee. A/P Loy received his BA (Hons) and MA in Philosophy from NUS, and PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley. His published research is mainly in early Chinese philosophy, with forays into cognate fields in collaboration with others, such as the history of science in East Asia, and contemporary notions of political legitimacy in East Asia. His other academic interests include ancient Greek philosophy, early modern and contemporary ethics and political philosophy. He is on the editorial board for Chinese Comparative Philosophy for Philosophy Compass and for the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture. More recently, he has also been involved in education related research.

Priya Maholay-Jarad - Biography

Dr. Priya Maholay-Jaradi specialises in South Asian art history. She has worked as an Assistant Curator at the Asian Civilisations Museum and authored Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875–1924).

Andrea Bitta Maier, MD - Biography

After graduation in Medicine at the Medical University Lübeck, Germany in 2003, Professor Andrea registered as a Specialist in Internal Medicine & Geriatrics at the Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, in 2009. Concurrently she worked on Translational Research on Aging, defending her thesis on geropsychiatric-medical units in 2003, and cellular senescence in 2008.

At the age of 33, Andrea was appointed as the Professor of Medicine at the VU University, Amsterdam, Netherlands, becoming the youngest ever to do so in the Netherlands. Later in 2016, she was assigned a Professor of Medicine and Aged Care role at the University of Melbourne, Australia. As a clinician-scientist and the Divisional Director of Medicine and Community Care at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, she was responsible for the daily management of non-surgical hospital care and community services, and the implementation of novel and cost-effective healthcare models.

In 2021, Prof. Maier continued her career at the National University of Singapore as an Oon Chiew Seng Professor in Medicine and Functional Aging, and a Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity, to increase the visibility, quality, and quantity of Aging Research and its translation into clinical practice.

Andrea Maier is an invited member of numerous international research and health policy committees including the World Health Organization. Throughout the last 10 years, she has conducted multiple national and international observational cohort studies as well as clinical trials and published more than 330 peer-reviewed articles (H index 54) in international journals.

Ajay Makhija - Biography

Dr. Ajay Makhija is an Adjunct Professor at NUS. He is a seasoned banker with almost three decades of experience across Asia and EMEA regions, and has a deep understanding of both emerging and developed markets. He also has deep expertise in consumer banking, private banking, consumer lending & wealth management.

Ajay served as a Board Member at Sambacapital from 2007 till 2017, where he oversaw businesses in investment banking, corporate finance, asset management, M&A and brokerage, and was a member of the Compliance & Control Committee and various Fund Board Committees. Concurrently, he was also CEO/Group Head of the Global Consumer Bank at Samba Financial Group, Saudi Arabia, from 2006 till 2015.

He further served as Board member at Ambit Wealth, a leading wealth management firm in India from 2022-2025.

Earlier in his career, Ajay spent 16 years in various leadership roles at Citigroup across India, Africa and Singapore.

Ajay graduated with honours in engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and earned an MBA from FMS Delhi University, where he received the prestigious Sir JC Ghosh Gold Medal for academic excellence. He completed his Doctorate from Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University (SMU, 2020) and his law degree as Juris Doctor from Yong Pung How School of Law at SMU in 2024. He regularly delivers guest lectures and seminars on leadership, values and ethics

Hugh Mason - Biography

Hugh Mason’s professional journey started from an engineer to TV producer and eventually co-founding JFDI, Southeast Asia’s first-ever startup accelerator in 2010.

From his JFDI learnings, Hugh emphasises the importance of building a strong, authentic community around an accelerator, rather than focusing on the brand. He highlights the value of studying anthropology and religion to understand community formation and the importance of a physical space.

Hugh’s experience has taught him to nurture the ecosystem and the next generation of founders, and not be a hero or guru. He has focused on the area of healthcare and education.

Greg Petersen - Biography

Greg Petersen is an Associate Professor at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at NUS, where he has been a faculty member since 2005. With a doctorate in interdisciplinary humanities and professional music experience, Greg has developed 18 curriculum modules.

Greg served as Master of Ridge View Residential College, overseeing 650 students and 24 faculty, and launched 28 initiatives in three years. As a founding faculty member of the College of Alice & Peter Tan, he helped establish a two-year residential program and developed three additional modules.

Previously, Greg taught at Rogers State University, where he chaired multiple committees and coordinated humanities programmes.

Before becoming an academic, Greg worked as a professional musician.

Jovan Tan - Biography

Dr. Jovan Tan specialises in applied innovation and sustainability, particularly within the circular economy. He is also affiliated with the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and is the Chief Evangelist of TRIA, a sustainable food packaging company.

Andy Tay Kah Ping - Biography

Andy Tay graduated in 2014 from NUS with a First-Class Honors in Biomedical Engineering. He later headed to the University of California, Los Angeles for his PhD studies and graduated in 2017 as the recipient of the Harry M Showman Commencement Award. Andy next received his postdoctoral training at Stanford University before heading to Imperial College London as an 1851 Royal Commission Brunel Research Fellow. He is currently a Presidential Young Professor in NUS.

Andy is a recipient of international awards including the Interstellar Initiative Early-Career Faculty Award, Christopher Hewitt Outstanding Young Investigator Award, Terasaki Young Innovator Award and Micro and Nano Engineering Young Investigator Award. He is listed as a 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 (US/Canada, Science), 2020 World Economic Forum Young Scientist, 2021 The Straits Times 30 and Under Young Singaporeans to Watch and 2022/3 Top 2% Scientist in the World by Stanford University.

Thang Leng Leng - Biography

Dr Leng Leng THANG is a socio-cultural anthropologist and associate professor with the Department of Japanese Studies, National University of Singapore. She was head of the Department for 12 years till 2021. Her research interests focus largely around aging-related issues including intergenerational programs and relationships, active aging, retirement migration and age-friendly community. She publishes widely on these topics especially relating to Japan and Singapore, She has been visiting scholars to Oxford University, University of Western Australia, University of Tokyo, Kyushu University and University of Hong Kong. She is known for her efforts in advancing the intergenerational field not only in research, but also in practice and policy fronts.

Matthew Daniel Walker - Biography

Matthew Daniel Walker, previously Associate Professor of Humanities (Philosophy) at Yale-NUS College, is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at NUS and author of *Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation* (Cambridge University Press). His primary areas of research and teaching include ancient Greek philosophy and comparative ethics. In 2021, he was awarded the Best Article Prize from the Journal of the History of Philosophy. He received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University, and a B.A. from Amherst College.

Janson Yap - Biography

Dr Janson Yap was formerly the Chief People Officer at the National University of Singapore, where he oversaw human resources policies and processes across the University. He was previously the University’s Chief Risk Officer from 2020 to 2022.

Prior to joining NUS in June 2020, Dr Yap served in various capacities in the Deloitte network. He was Managing Director of Deloitte Consulting based in Bangkok, Thailand before taking on the role of Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific Regional Managing Partner of Risk Advisory Services from 2010 to 2020. He was also a member of Deloitte’s Global Risk Management Team and oversaw various portfolios, including that of Southeast Asia Innovation Leader. Under his supervision, the company’s business portfolio reached USD800 million at the Asia Pacific level.

Dr Yap previously served on various advisory boards including the IT Steering Committee of SkillsFuture and Asia Accounting Research Centre. Dr Yap is also the author of several books including *Foresight & Strategy in the Asia Pacific Region* (co-authored with Dr. Luke Vander Laan); *Wow! How Did You Know That?*, a book on intelligent risk management; *Average to ACES*, a volume on the lives of ordinary people achieving extraordinariness. *Why ME?* is his latest book, a study on work-culture, employer and employee motivations, expectations and engagements.

Wayne Lai - Biography

Wayne Lai is the CEO of Hook Coffee, a specialty coffee company based in Singapore. Under his leadership, Hook Coffee has gained recognition for its innovative products and efforts to stand out in a competitive industry. He is known for fostering creativity and a passion for sustainability within the business.