Girisha

Girisha Durrel De Silva is in his fifth year of our Computer Science PhD programme. He loves model railroading but has not been able to indulge in his hobby here in Singapore. He also watches cheesy reality shows even though he knows that most of them are scripted. Being from a cricket obsessed nation, like all the other kids, he wanted to be national cricket player, but then he grew up and realized it wasn’t his forte. Like other cyclists we’ve interviewed here, he hopes that our campus could be made more cycle-friendly. Girisha’s ultimate dinner guests would be former Top Gear UK presenters, Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. He’s currently planning on a career in the teaching track of academia. 

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Kandy is considered a sacred city and is well known around the world as it is home to the temple of the Tooth Relic which houses the relic of the tooth of Buddha. Kandy is also a popular tourist destination among the foreigners and the locals living in other parts of the island because of the cool climate, thickly forested hills and many historic landmarks. 

During my childhood, my city used to be more laid back in nature. For example, most of the shops would close by 6 pm and most bus services would stop by 7 pm :). So people used to spend more time with their families and enjoy the finer things in life :) I did all my schooling in Kandy and moved to the capital to pursue my degree at the University of Colombo.

Why are you doing a PhD?

I have played around with computers since I was very young and I have always been fascinated about all things related to computing. My eagerness to learn about computing made me pursue a degree in computing. Midway through my degree I got to work on a small scale research project in my university and that experience really made me think that research is what I want to do in future and here I am pursuing a PhD at NUS.

Describe your research and its significance.

Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous and people are moving from the traditional desktops to mobile devices to carry out their day to day computing tasks. For better performance, limited bandwidth and battery capacity of mobile devices need to be addressed by better power and bandwidth management techniques. 

State-of-the-art mobile devices in the market are equipped with multiple communication interfaces such as cellular, WiFi and bluetooth radio. Each interface has different power, radio and data rate characteristics. In brief, my research concentrates on exploring the diversities provided by these interfaces to improve the performance of a mobile device in terms of power consumption and data rates. 

In few years, almost everything in the world will be connected to the Internet and as a result, networking in general is going to impact our lives even more than today. Therefore, solutions to most of the interesting problems being researched by the networking community today, will be applied by people on a day to day basis in the next decade.

Describe your SoC experience.

[I enjoy] doing research work with professors who are world class in their research fields. The suggestions, criticisms and the guidance they provide help us to improve our work and follow the right direction. [The most challenging part is] coming up with a research problem which is both interesting and practical.

I work closely with two professors, namely: Prof. Chan Mun Choon who is my adviser and also Prof. Wei Tsang Ooi who is my co-adviser. Both professors are very kind and are always willing to help me in my research work through effective guidance. If someone wants a definition for hard work then they should see how my professors work :). Out of the courses I attended I really enjoyed attending Prof. Chang Ee-Chien’s course as he kept us entertained throughout the class with his witty jokes while delivering the lecture content. During my first semester at NUS I attended a course conducted by Prof. Tulika Mitra. I needed to make up for my low scores during mid-term and had to clear a lot of queries related to the first half of the course content. In spite of her busy schedule, she was kind enough to give me an appointment in which she patiently answered all my queries. 

I also used to be a tutor for an introductory networking module for Undergraduate students at SoC. It was a great experience to work with a bunch of very talented students.

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you?

My grandfather is from Hubei, China. That makes me part Chinese :)

Worst design?

Internet Explorer. LoL.

Favourite sports team?

The Sri Lankan cricket team and the English Rugby Team

Pet peeve?

Seeing unread emails, messages etc. At least take time to mark all of them read :D

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Ervin

Ervin Kwan will be beginning his final semester studying Information Systems in August. He thinks that he probably has a lot in common with most people because he’s interested in most things and is always learning something new. He wishes that students here would be less competitive and just be friends. When he’s not busy, his favourite pastime is watching TED videos.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Hougang. I was from the neighbourhood Holy Innocents’ High School, from a normal technical stream, then was upgraded to the normal academic in later years. The thought of being in NUS one day never occurred to me at all. I had a thug’s life back then. 

Describe your SoC experience.

SoC has quite a few remarkable professors! In no particular order, I would like to shout out to Prof. Hahn Jungpil, Dr. Soo Yuen Jien and Mr. Aaron Tan. They taught the lectures that I seriously enjoyed. 

Apart from awesome professors, SoC gave me many peers, activities, air-conditioned study space, stress, bell-curve and free buffet (leeching from events). I do a lot of crazy things to my friends in SoC. Some of which are, giving flowers to the first 3 girls I meet in SoC during Valentine’s Day, telling my friends that assignment deadline was extended on April’s fool and performing magic tricks to random people. I have favourite buddies and we try to take every module together and we suffer and enjoy a lot. Beeyi, Terence and Myo! What would I do without you? 

In SoC, I enjoy sharing – I love to teach or help people who are in need. Being a CS1020 TA under Mr Aaron Tan for a semester was intriguing. I really hope I can inspire and motivate people to love computing one day. 

Apart from those who I have mentioned above, Ms. Toh and Ms. Quek (recently left) helped me so much in SoC admin matters. I demand that SoC increase their pay! How would SoC function without Ms. Toh man!? 

What did you want to be when you were younger? 

I wanna be everything! For every movie I watched, I became inspired. I feel like dancing after watching Step-Up the movie and I always have the urge to fight after watching Ip Man. 

I’m told that you’re one of the founders of NUS Magic. Tell me about this.

I started magic 7 years ago while reading books and finding resources from the Internet. Somewhere along the way, without knowing it, I became real good at it. The first external gig I performed at was introduced by my friend who had a carnival organized at a community club. While performing, people asked me for name cards and contact details because they were interested in “employing” me. I guess if the “product” is of high quality, it markets itself through word of mouth. 

NUS Magic was founded after I got a gig at an NUS event that staff and research assistants attended. It turned out that I was not the only magician there and realized that the others were also from NUS. We then discussed our passion and became determined to setup a club through OSA, despite the hassle of the process (just kidding). 

Performance itself now is like an exercise to me. The organization of content, speech, presentation and theatrics are all often thought about when I have the time. It helped me in my school’s presentation as well in teaching CS1020 as a TA. Therefore, if anyone is interested, come join us here at the NUS Magic club =D. 

What are your future plans?

As I am about to graduate soon, most of my thoughts are about my career. Have been doing internships to get a feel for what I may be interested in. Last summer, I was in IDA and this summer I am at Accenture. I guess there are so many things happening in my life all the time that I can’t plan extensively. It probably will be futile as life is so dynamic to me. 

Quick-Fire. Worst fear?

Water and betrayal

Three ultimate dinner party guests?

Iron-man, Sherlock Holmes and another Narcissist (Formula for a good comedy)

Singapore’s best kept secret?

******* **** *******

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Bimlesh

When she isn’t working, Dr. Bimlesh Wadhwa enjoys spending time with her kids and watching movies. Her favourite movies are the classic Gone with the Wind, Disney’s Finding Nemo and Bollywood’s 3 Idiots and Bhag Milkha Bhag. The best places she’s been to are in her dreams and she cannot live without her morning tea.

Eight year old Bimlesh :)

Where did you grow up?

I was born in New Delhi, capital of the country of Taj Mahal, Biryani and Prata. Though I have lived half of my life in Singapore, I still call myself a proud Delhiite. Delhi has great people. It is a very fun-loving city and enjoyable too. I did my schooling and college studies in Delhi. My parents and most of my extended family are still in Delhi. Every year, I travel at least once to Delhi, the heart (‘Dil’) of India.

What are you currently working on?

Recently, I have been working on gender issues in interaction design with an anthropologist Samantha Berslin.

This work is about exploring possible ways of understanding and incorporating nuanced approaches to gender in its relationship with interaction design and computer science education. Too often research on gender is taken as equivalent to research on women, or relies on stereotypical or reified ideas of gender identity and difference. Much research on gender in the field of computer science has focused on addressing the ongoing under representation of women in the discipline in many “Western” countries or explored how and to what extent technology designed, produced, and used by “men” or “women”. Singapore presents an interesting alternative case to the “woman problem,” having approximate gender parity in computing.  It is interesting to explore how particular gender boundaries and stereotypes are made, reinforced, and complicated in teaching, learning, and doing design. 

At UTown

What do you like about SoC?

The School of Computing has been like home for the last 14 years. Surrounded by like-minded people, I have come to know them as family. I enjoy interacting with students on a day to day basis in this lovable and conducive environment.

What is the one thing you would change about SoC?

Wish all of us could laugh more & appreciate humor – e.g. have a digital board where we can post cartoons and funny things.

With students at STePS

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you?

I love getting drenched in rain.

I like taking part in radio quizzes & often win them too. :)

I did MSc in High Energy Physics before venturing into computer science.

I love balloons.

Quick-Fire! Worst design?

Shutdown in Windows 8

Guilty pleasures?

Singing in the car driving alone. Getting excited over small things such as new iPhone cover.

Four ultimate dinner party guests?

Dory - but she might need her own fish bowl

Wall-E - He might come with a plant but is cute either way!

Remy - He would cook the best Ratatouille for dinner :)

Barbara Liskov - there is no Substitute (LSP)

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Atreyi

Associate Professor Atreyi Kankanhalli thinks ‘Oblivion’ is probably the worst film she’s seen recently (she couldn’t make out what it intended to convey!). Her pet peeve is messiness and she doesn’t like crowded or confined spaces (Ed: I sure hope she doesn’t have to use the MRT during rush hour!). And, for her, the best hawker food in Singapore is the roti prata at the Jalan Kayu Prata Stall.

Atreyi (centre, in all black) with her IS colleagues

Where did you grow up?

Not a lot of people may know that I spent a large part of my childhood in Turkey. Although I was born in India, I spent close to 11 years of my childhood in Ankara (capital of Turkey). My father was working at the State Planning Division and later as an academic at Hacettepe University (I guess pursuing an academic career runs in the family!). It was an interesting place to grow up. Turkey is quite a modern country and the people are very friendly – in fact they would invite you into their house for a meal at any time of day. Also, Turkey has a unique geographical position serving as a bridge between Asia and Europe. There is a rich history drawing from the early Greek civilization (there are interesting ruins to visit) to the more recent Ottoman empire (Istanbul has some of this rich heritage). So it was an interesting country to live in and to travel around. 

For my schooling though, it was quite challenging! I first studied at the British Embassy School for my primary school as there were very few options for education in English. For my middle school, I went to the Ankara Kolej and studied only English, Maths, and Science. This is because these were the only subjects taught in English and all the other subjects were in Turkish! Subsequently, I had another set of challenges when my family moved back to India when I was in Grade 9. I had to learn an Indian language (Hindi) at that level and adjust to a new education system – I suppose all these changes help to make one adaptable!

Describe your work and its significance.

My research work examines issues around knowledge work, collaboration, and innovation supported by information and communication technology. My early work during my PhD examined the core motivations and barriers behind employee’s knowledge sharing behaviours using knowledge management systems (KMS). This was at the time when organizations were starting to introduce KMS in order to facilitate knowledge sharing, storage, and reuse. My thesis work helped to shed light on the key drivers for KMS use, and was one of the pioneering works in this area. As a result, it produced a significant impact in the field and garnered a large number of citations – and continues to be well-cited currently as well.

Subsequently, I have studied knowledge contribution and participation behaviours in various forms of online communities and ICT mediated contexts such as virtual teams. Here, too, the underlying objective is to gain a better understanding of the antecedents and consequences of these behaviours. I typically use objective, survey, and interview data to test the theoretical models that I have developed with my collaborators and students. 

I believe that if one can do work that is theoretically novel i.e., brings a new perspective, to understanding a phenomenon that is of practical interest, then such work is meaningful and will have a lasting impact. That is what I strive to do in my research.

Describe your SoC experience.

I came to SoC after working for 9 years in R&D in I2R (then known as ISS). Fresh with a Masters in Electrical Eng. from the US, I had joined ISS and worked on image processing, computer vision, and multimedia projects (including some pioneering work in video processing). After that I had a change of heart to move to academics and also change my field to a more socio-technical one rather than a purely technical subject. That is why I ended up signing up for a PhD in Information Systems. 

Following my PhD, I was recruited in the Dept., which made it easy for me as the work environment was familiar. Though it was a bit strange that my previous professors now became colleagues! 

But even during my PhD I had found the Dept., SoC, and NUS in general to be a very conducive environment for doing research. So I was happy to be able to continue my academic career here. In terms of challenges, there is always the issue of being away from the US which is the perceived centre of cutting-edge research. But in the years I have been here, this has become less and less of a limitation with the increasing internationalization of research in my area and other areas as well.

My teaching experience has been quite smooth and pleasant so far. Students in Asia and NUS in general are quite motivated and respectful of their professors. If you prepare your materials well and are helpful in promptly answering their queries, then they are very appreciative of your efforts. I am particularly impressed by those conscientious students (we have quite a few) who take the initiative to find out more and ask questions to master the subject.

Probably, if at all there is something I would like to change about SoC/NUS is to streamline some of the processes around teaching e.g., moderation. While there is plenty of flexibility in doing research, possibly we can do a bit more in terms of teaching.

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you?

A couple of things probably:

• I studied Biomedical Engineering for a while and even had to cut up animals for my experiments
• I have recently started to learn Mandarin! I am not very proficient right now, but hopefully I will get there!

What do you enjoy doing when you are not working?

Travelling and watching movies are my hobbies. Other than travelling for work, I do enjoy visiting new places and finding out about the culture and history of those places.

With respect to movies, I enjoy both Hollywood and Bollywood films – particularly biopics. One of my favorite movies is ‘A Beautiful Mind’ about the American economist John Nash. I also enjoyed the ‘The Iron Lady’ that came out a few years ago.

Quick-Fire! Most interesting use of or development in technology this year?

Self-Driving vehicle technology that many companies including Google are researching. I am particularly interested as I’m not the biggest fan of city-driving.

Most annoying word?

“Whatever” – I get annoyed when my kids use this!

Three ultimate dinner party guests

• Agatha Christie.
• Any one of the Beatles
• Isaac Newton 

I grew up on Agatha Christie’s mystery novels and Beatles’ songs. Also, I’m amazed by the breadth and depth of Newton’s contributions – there’s hardly any branch of classical Physics that he hasn’t made significant contributions to.

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Pooja wants Wednesday-Talks back!

Fourth year PhD student Pooja Roy hails from the City of Joy, Kolkata, in East India. Pooja reckons that most people there are foodies. Apparently you’ll find sweet shops every 500 metres around the city and anyone visiting Kolkata must try ‘phuchhka’, a tiny hollow fried bun with hot potato filling, served with a sour tamarind dip. Pooja loves singing and once thought of making a career out of her love for music - she even learnt to play the piano to compose music. She has not given up on this wish yet.

Why are you doing a PhD?

In early days of school when we were asked to write an essay about our ambition in life, I always wrote that I would become an educator. The wish got stronger every passing year and thus here I am, pursuing PhD so that I can teach in an university in my country. Instead of working in a tier one institution which is overflowing with amazing talents, I really wish to work for universities that are not so famous. I feel that I can utilize my training received in a top university like NUS to provide and contribute to an institution that lacks good educators.

Describe your research and its significance.

I work in the area of compiler optimizations. Compiler is a piece of software that translates what a programmer writes, into binary codes that a machine can execute. A compiler can be visualized as a vertically oriented channel which starts from application layer that is the source code and ends in the hardware that run them. At every level of abstraction it needs information to optimize the program so that it works correctly as the programmer wants, runs faster, uses the memory devices very efficiently, does not interfere with other applications running at the same time etc. Lately, as power consumption is a big issue in computing, compilers also need to consider how much power the code will consume when it is run. This power consumption is due to all the hardware that will be needed to run the application. In any computer, memory devices are a main consumer of power. In my thesis, I am exploring how compilers can optimize programs so that it consumes lesser power while it runs. There is a new type of memory called Resistive memories. These memories have special power requirements and properties. As SRAM and DRAM, the most common memory technologies are failing to scale up for future computing devices, this class of Resistive memories are being explored to replace them. My thesis work, specially, considers these memories and tried to optimize programs so consume minimum energy while its execution.

I am working on the junction of software layer and hardware layer which makes my work very interesting. Each phenomenon that we observe in a particular problem can be explored or answered from two very different perspectives - one that is abstract and based on logic, the other is real hardware devices. This not only makes the work very interesting, also makes it a bit difficult at times. Personally, I like my area of research because I get opportunities to explore the very core of how computers work.

I remember reading from a famous professor's blog "it does not really matter which era you are born in, science always have uncharted spaces". Though my area of research is a very well-known and well-studied area for past many decades, still it is very active and has lot of opportunities for research. Every innovation in the field of electronic design or programming languages has impact on compilation techniques. With more and more complex and high performance systems and popularity of mobile devices, I think there will be a steady need for innovative compilation techniques in the coming years and further. 

Frankly speaking when I started as a PhD student I found research very daunting. Especially after clearing qualifiers I really felt the difference between reading for exams and research work where you are expected to create new knowledge. Fortunately I am working with an amazingly encouraging supervisor [A/P Wong Weng-Fai]. If not for his constant motivation and simple words of appreciation at every step, I would not have continued so far. As a PhD student we have to publish research manuscripts. Many students face a lot of difficulty in achieving good publications. I too faced this peril. However, I could stand up after every paper rejection mainly because of my supervisor's trust in me. I love research because I love asking "why”s. I am very curious by nature and that is why my favourite part of every project is the idea formation or the brainstorming where we explore all the "why"s that comes to our mind. For every "why", when I can find an answer, it is a joy that cannot be explained in words. It is somewhat like a treasure hunt game. :-)

Describe your SoC experience. What do you enjoy the most about studying at SoC?

I like the freedom given to all students that they can learn just by attending the lectures. This way, it is easier for students to learn what we really want to learn without worrying about GPAs. I love the facilities provided to research students. We all have our own comfortable desks to work. The exposure given to the PhD students, for example, regular workshops, research talks and seminar by eminent people, is also very encouraging.

I think many PhD students will agree with me - the most challenging aspect of my journey is SoC was my qualifier exams. Though for the new students it is differently designed now. I hope the new structure will prove to be more research friendly. 

How I am shaped as a researcher is mainly because of my supervisor’s constant encouragement. He inspired me the most. Apart from my supervisor, I am really inspired by Professor Mohan Kankanhalli and A/P Tulika Mitra. Prof Mohan's guidance has always helped me in taking decisions about my graduate studies. And Prof Tulika is always providing us with many opportunities to meet very eminent people from our area of research. She cares and includes not only her students but also the students of other professors in any event that can help PhD students gain more knowledge and awareness of our field.

[The one thing I would change about SoC is that the] Biz canteen must have new stalls! haha :P On a serious note, I think we should have more interactions between research labs. We used to have a Wednesday-talk series called "CS-Talks" where one person from any lab would present the basics of his/her research area and all other students from others labs could attend. I really hope that it could resume.

What is the funniest thing that you’ve done? 

In December 2013, I went on a trip to Vietnam. As I like to travel in the streets and markets in any new place, not only the typical tourist attractions, I discovered that almost no one speaks or understands English, the only language I know, in the street food or market places in Vietnam. Of course in the cities and tours organized for tourists every one speaks and understand English but not in the local streets. The only one thing that kept me from getting lost in translation was "Google Translate". I downloaded an offline language pack (Vietnamese - English and vice versa) in my phone and went around all over Vietnam typing to everyone and communicating happily about anything I wanted to! It was at times hilarious when many people gathered around me to see what exactly I am trying to do by showing my phone to the shop keeper and such like. But surely it was helpful and lifesaving at times. :P

Apparently you’re a movie-buff. Tell me about this. 

I like movies and especially war-time films or films with non-linear story lines! My favourite director is Quentin Tarantino, director of the famous movie "Kill Bill". My close friends are Film Studies graduates and film enthusiasts. I think it’s because of their company that I am also a film enthusiast. not only watching different genres of films, I love discussing them with my friends over a cup of coffee. I also read blogs and love to watch various documentaries on Nat Geo or BBC! One of my favourite show is Air Crash Investigations.

Quick-Fire: Best movie you’ve seen this year?

Highway 

Worst fashion trend?

"Moustache" lockets and prints!

Best hawker food in Singapore?

Jin De Lai Zhong Hua La Mian - a Chinese restaurant in Boat Quay (their speciality is chilli crab).

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Doco Buff - Abhijeet

Abhijeet Banerjee is in the third year of his PhD. According to one of my informants, he “tells awesome stories about his undergrad days and has probably seen every documentary on this planet.” Unfortunately, I have failed to draw any of those stories out of him - perhaps they were a bit too saucy for our little blog. At any rate, his love for story telling is evident in his prose.

Where did you grow up?

I spent a substantial part of my childhood in the North Indian city of Varanasi. It is situated on the banks of river Ganga and is considered to be one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It is a spiritual city full of old temples and monasteries. However, for me the most memorable feature of the city remains the river ghats (stone paved river banks). If you go there in the early morning hours, you would see the sun rising over the mist on one side. On the other side you would see a seemingly endless series of stone steps leading up to numerous pavilions and terraces. Occasionally, you would find a temple or a shrine. At far you could see a railway bridge, over which sometimes you could see a train pass by. 

Living in a city right next to a big river has its own advantages, such as you could go for a swim or a boat ride every now and then. Apart from the river activities, I remember spending a huge amount of time on our roof-top flying kites. Yes, in my city kites are usually flown from the rooftop and in the festival of kites the entire sky is full of kites. The festival of kites (Makar Sankranti) was just one of my favourites, we had the festival of colours (Holi), the festival of lights (Deepavali) and the list goes on. As a child I had a whole list of festivals to look forward to throughout the year and in each festival the city looked different. Even in non-festive seasons the city is a colourful place, quite full of life. A distinct feature of the city is its network of labyrinth like by-lanes, navigating which can be a daunting task for an unfamiliar person. I have had quite a few adventures exploring them!

Why are you doing a PhD?

The answer to this question probably lies in my undergraduate years. During undergraduate years I had a lot of fun while remembering to study a little bit of everything. However, sometimes during the lectures, when the professor would be explaining a new concept, I would have a crazy “what-if” idea (i.e. what if I did this instead of that, idea). Usually, I didn’t bother to bother anyone with those “what-if” ideas. Undergraduate is too much fun to bother about “what-if” ideas. However, eventually graduation drew near and I realized that only way to explore some “what-if” ideas was to join a PhD program (because at that time none of job offers I had were research oriented) and that’s when I made the choice of enrolling for a PhD. During PhD, one has the time and resources to check out all “what-if” ideas one has. Most of the time they turn out to be crazy but sometimes they do work out.

Briefly describe your research and its significance.

My research is primarily focused towards testing and analysis of non-functional properties (such as execution time and energy consumption), for real-time, embedded systems. Embedded systems are specialized computer systems designed and used for a specific task. They are everywhere, watches, smartphones, automobiles, space shuttles all use embedded systems. A real-time constraint dictates that the system (in our case, embedded system) must respond in real time. For example, an anti-lock breaking system in an automobile must react as soon as the brake pedal is pressed and not a few minutes later. Failure to meet a constraint, for such systems, might lead to serious (even fatal) consequences. Therefore, to ensure the reliability of such systems, the software executing on such platforms must be tested for functional (e.g. absence of buffer overflows), as well as non-functional properties (e.g. execution time, energy consumption).  

Every year exciting new ideas are presented in this field through leading journals and conferences. However, still a lot remains to be done in this field. Let me give you an example, if you are a smartphone user you must have faced the irritating “low-battery” signal while you were doing something interesting. If you had a similar experience, I can sympathise with you and so will the millions of smartphone users around the world. Every year we have new and improved smartphones coming in to the market, each with a bigger screen, a better camera or a faster processor etc. These trends are not surprising as integrated circuit technology is approximately doubling every two years, as correctly predicted by Gordon E. Moore in 1965. However, the same cannot be said about the battery technology. The improvements in the battery capacity over past couple of decades have been very small. Such problems give rise to a host of research opportunities. Presently, applications for smartphone and mobile devices are developed in an energy oblivious way, the implication of which are wasted battery power and/or reduced battery life.  

In our current research we are trying to develop tools and techniques for energy aware programming for mobile device such as smartphones. Such techniques when developed would enable the application developers to develop energy-efficient applications and enable the contemporary devices with limited battery capacity to function much better. Not only that, energy-aware programming tools (and techniques) would be useful even when better battery technologies arrives, as energy-efficient applications are good at saving energy and therefore contributes towards a greener planet.

Briefly describe your experience as an SoC student. 

Being enrolled in a highly ranked educational institution is a privilege by itself. There are other perks too. Grad students in SoC have plenty of opportunities in terms of educational resources, the chances to interact with other highly skilled people in their research domains, attend interesting workshops and seminar that are regularly held in the department, etc 

The most important [faculty member, to me,] would be my advisor Dr Abhik Roychoudhury, who has been there for me ever since I joined the department. SoC has so many good faculty members that it is hard to name a few. However, the two faculty members who have made the biggest impressions on me were Dr Liang Zhenkai and Dr Y. C. Tay. 

I took a module on systems security during which I had the chance to interact with Dr Liang Zhenkai. I felt that he is one of the most hands-on professors I have met in the department. Thanks to him, I actually learnt how to do cool stuff such as buffer overflow attacks and XSS attacks. Earlier I just knew that these things existed and never tried them on my own.  

I was also very impressed by the teaching style of Dr Y. C. Tay. He is the only professor I know who still uses overhead projectors to teach! Not only that he would haul two overhead projectors for every lecture along with various props to make us understand the complex concepts of analytical performance modelling. I really admire the enthusiasm with which he taught us in every single one of his lectures.

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you?

I enrolled in a school when I was less than 3 Years of age and I have been in school (figuratively speaking) ever since.

Why are you drawn to documentaries?

I think that our world is an awesome place. It is full of information, lots and lots of it. However, in the rush of our day to day lives we often overlook the details of the world around us. If we look closely, every person, every single object has a different story to tell. As a person who is fond of listening to (and telling) stories, documentaries are an excellent medium for me to know new things. 

Over the years I have watched a number of documentaries, some of which were very elaborate, such as “Planet Earth” (released 2006, made by BBC) whereas others were very simple, such as the “Life in a Day” (released 2011, made by people from all over the world). Varied as they might be in their theme and design, yet they have one thing in common, they are all made with the intention of conveying a message. So I guess in that sense (conveying a message), I would say the most influential and memorable documentary I remember watching would be a documentary named “An inconvenient truth”. A good documentary is a mix of a good (untold) story composed of clear and concise information and accompanied by a captivating narration. In the documentary “An inconvenient truth”, Al Gore presents the general ideas about global warming in such a manner that even the uninitiated would have little trouble following it. This documentary was crucial in changing my (and many other people’s) views about Global Warming and the dangers it poses to us.

Quick-fire! Best film ever? 

Wall-E

Most annoying word? 

Segmentation Fault

Three items you would want with you if you were stranded on a deserted island? 

An axe, a lighter and a shipping container full of books, preferably novels ;-D

Got ideas about questions we should be asking or people we should be chatting with? Email tien@nus.edu.sg