Ru Hong

Seah Ru Hong will be receiving his Master of Computing in Computer Science degree this July. The thing he enjoys most about being a student here is the immense relief of completing a particularly difficult assignment. He’s an ‘East-side’ guy and loves the convenience of the East-West MRT line, when it’s actually working. He also did his Bachelor’s degree with us from 2003 to 2007, and can claim to have been a student of both the IS and CS departments.

What do you do now?

I co-founded my company QQstay. QQstay is a website that helps people find reliable property agents through customer reviews. I’m the only software engineer on the team and I developed the website. 

For many, property is the biggest purchase of a lifetime and you want to entrust this important deal to someone reliable. Advertisements of property agents are very common, and yet, finding a reliable property agent is not as easy as it should be. Very often, we rely on our friends’ recommendations to engage a property agent. What if we can bring those recommendations online? Hence, we created QQstay, a community where people can share reviews of property agents in Singapore. 

We believe that customer reviews can also help property agents. Positive reviews attract more customers and constructive feedback help agents to level up their service. It is a win-win situation. No one can deny the influence of online reviews on purchase decisions. Nowadays, we don’t book an overseas vacation until we have read a TripAdvisor review. We want to bring the same effect to the property agent profession. 

Currently, I am working to add other service providers to the QQstay community, such as renovation contractors, electricians and plumbers.

What do you count as your most significant achievement to date? 

I was the regional winner of the Google Cloud Developer Challenge 2013. It was during this time when I started to learn website development on the Google Cloud Platform. The Google Cloud Platform is powerful, easy to setup and affordable. When our QQstay website was in the prototype stage, I did not have to pay a single cent for using Google’s cloud. That’s because the Google Cloud Platform is free to use so long as your application lives within its basic resource quotas. There are no limited time trials. That’s ideal for entrepreneurs like me who need to quickly iterate on prototyping, without having to worry about splurging on experiments. 

I reinvested the prize money of US$20,000 into my start-up QQstay. Google also disbursed an additional grant of US$18,000 to SoC as I was representing the school.

What was your academic path before coming to NUS Computing?

I enrolled in NUS through the ‘A’ levels route. SoC was my first choice even though I did not read ‘A’ level Computing. I was very curious about computers and the Internet as I spend a lot of time on these media (still do).  

Which NUS Computing faculty members made impressions on you? 

Several teaching staff have impressed me with their patience and dedication. Particularly, I want to thank Mr Aaron Tan, Prof Chua Tat Seng, Prof Yu Haifeng, Prof Ng Teck Khim, Prof Chan Chee Yong, Prof Heng Cheng Suang and Prof Tan Kian Lee. Last but not least, I want to thank Dr. Sharon Tan for her referral to help me gain admission to the MComp programme.

I also want to thank the school committee that decided to teach Java to freshmen many years ago. The Java programming language has been my steady workhorse throughout my career and I still use Java extensively at work now. The Java ecosystem is so mature that I can always find a tool I need without having to reinvent the wheel. 

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

That I got my Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems (E-commerce) but I pursued a Master’s degree in Computer Science. Moving to a more technical career is off the beaten track in Singapore. But I was determined to pursue a technical career out of passion, even though sometimes I feel like I am swimming against the tide. I hope that, one day, engineering and management would be equally viable career paths in Singapore, just like the top software houses in the US. 

I must confess that I was one of those ‘kiasu’ students when I was an undergrad. I was obsessed with my grades, so I felt insecure when I entered SoC with zero programming background. I remembered that I totally flunked an interview for a vacation job because I did not know how to create a database table in Microsoft Access! Thanks to SoC’s dedicated teaching team, not only did my confidence in programming grow but I fell in love with it. Even though I find the technical parts interesting, I hesitated to risk my grades by reading more Computer Science modules, which have a reputation of being really hard.   

So when I came back to do my Master’s, I gave myself a new goal; and that is to learn as much as I can. I wanted to take all the interesting modules, no matter how intimidating they may seem. The course requires 10 modules, out of which at least 5 must be in Computer Science. I took 9 CS modules. I have very humble grades but I’m satisfied with what I have learnt.

What do you enjoy doing when you are not studying or working?

To satisfy my own curiosity, I like to do data visualizations in my spare time. I have a side project SG Charts that showcases public data ranging from salary, COE prices to dengue clusters. Recently I read two great books that I would like to share with everyone: Peter Siebel’s Coders At Work and Brad Stone’s The Everything Store. 

Quick-fire! Most annoying word? 

When people ask you to “revert” to emails

Guilty pleasures?

I have only just discovered the Game of Thrones books and I recently finished A Clash of Kings. I can’t resist a good tiramisu, which is hard to find in Singapore!

Colin

Trust Colin Tan’s responses to break the eight-question mould. He says he’s extremely free spirited and can sometimes fire off wildly inappropriate things, but he doesn’t mean any harm. One of his pet peeves, however, might result in someone being harmed one day, because he finds it very hard not to punch people in the back of the head when they walk around with their heads down looking at their mobile phones – but he says that ‘as civilised individuals, we must try our best not to’. If there were only three things he could eat for the rest of his life, it would be cold fish ball noodles (explained later), durians and satay. He reckons that Singapore’s best kept secret is the satay shop across the road from his house.

Colin, as commander of the Achaemenid guards.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in a cow-shed (Kandang Kerbau) in a small sunny grungy seaport island called Singapore, which, according to legend, comes from the phrase “Singh Kapo!”, which means “Mr. Singh confiscated my stuff!”. True story. I spent a little bit of time in the Arabian deserts fulfilling my own dreams of being Lawrence of Arabia (minus the discomforts of riding camels all day long, and add in the creature comforts of the biggest most ornate malls you’ve ever seen). Think of it as Lawrence of Arabia with drinks by the beach.

But yeah most of my 25 years of existence was in Singh Kapo.

Describe your work and its significance.

I’m a typical boy, so I love anything that has flashing lights and beeps. Major brownie points if it flies, so naturally I found my love in drones. They’re big, loud, have flashing lights and they fly! How much cooler can you get than that?

Right…many drones! So I’m working on a cheap way to coordinate large clusters of big, loud, flashy, flying machines.

What effect do you think your field will have on the world in the next decade?

Lots. Surveillance, making money, transport, making money, making the world a better place, making money, world peace, making money. And making money.

Describe your SoC experience. 

As a student, [I enjoyed having] uber-cool profs like A/P Leong Hon Wai, who taught me (via his infamous Cattywampus lecture) that I should never trust anyone. Least of all professors. I carry on that tradition with my students, who have learnt that professors can “convince” you of anything.

As a staff member, in all seriousness, I love SoC! It’s the awesomest workplace in the world with colleagues who care about what they do and about giving their best to the students. It’s no wonder we’re #1. :D

Colleagues aside, management is extremely supportive, especially when it comes to coolest ways to teach our students. Watch out for a drone class coming in January 2017!

What do you find most challenging/interesting?

Definitely starting up a new class all on your own, with absolutely no idea where to begin. It’s fun but stressful because there’s no reference point, and students will hate you if you screw it up! Also teaching is like marriage; no one notices when you’re doing a great job, but mess up and there’s going to be tons of complaints in your feedback.

But I take all that in my stride. Ultimately if we care about our students, karma will take care of us. :)

Who made impressions on you?

Students: My awesome CS3216 teaching team! They’re brilliant, extremely dedicated people who endure no end of abuse from me but yet deliver all my marks accurately and on time! In particular Tay Yang Shun, who is helping me pro-bono this semester. Seriously how much awesome-r can you get than that?

Staff: Where do I begin? Damith, Gary, Yuen Jien, Steven, Ben, Lifeng, Sun Teck, Aaron and a ton of other colleagues who are extremely dedicated to ensuring that their students get the best in their education. And of course Prof. Leong Hon Wai… Cattywampus.

What was the craziest thing that you did during your time here? 

So many stories! Giving first aid to an unconscious girl in the toilet (there were other staff present around me), catching and detaining a mentally unstable individual until campus security and the police arrived, getting sliced by a drone propeller, having a drone crash while delivering a project to a customer, getting stalked by a student for a bit, having another student refuse to leave my office until I agreed to pass him for something (despite the fact he had absolutely no clue about the subject matter),  suicidal students, another student whose father was shouting at her so much that I was trying to calm him down..

Many other stories... being a prof is kinda exciting.

  

Is there anything you would have done differently during your time as a student?

Taken mathematics much more seriously. I am very math challenged. Also taking design concepts more seriously. I’m a pretty good back-end coder, but, while I have decent design and colour matching skills, I can’t code front-ends to save my life. 

What is the one thing you would change about NUS?

Have more schools be as awesome as SoC. No, seriously. Students tell me how they love the friendly, informal atmosphere here, where profs are often more like senior friends.

What do you think makes your experience here different than anyone else’s?

I’m blessed with the ability to convince people of just about anything. Especially about knowing something I really don’t know anything about. That makes life much easier.

What do you count as your most significant achievement to date?

I’m extremely proud of my CS3216 Software Development for Digital Markets class. :) Every year I get the best students in the school, put them through the wringer, and make them even better than when they started. 

Actually [before running CS3216] I was pursuing something else, and I asked Ben Leong for advice, and he said “Hey why don’t you take over CS3216?” And I was like “Oh ok”.

I never got that something else done, but I inherited what is probably the most legendary class in the whole of NUS. :)

Running this class takes very thick skin, which fortunately I have. The bulk of the lectures are delivered by guest speakers, covering topics from project management, to communication, to sales and marketing. It’s not your typical technical class.

This also means I constantly have to approach people I don’t know but who have interesting backgrounds, and convince them to give up 2-3 hours of their time on a Monday night (and sometimes other nights as well) to come give a talk to my students.

The thing I’ve learnt though is that people are amazingly helpful. I’ve never been rejected before. :)

[I am lucky I have an] awesome Teaching Assistant, Chin Su Yuen, who also runs her own company called Momocentral, specialising in outsourcing coding and designing jobs. 

What did you want to be when you were younger? 

I wanted to be a pilot! In fact after my PhD I applied to SIA to become a cadet pilot. After hearing nothing except for the sound of crickets, I applied for a teaching appointment here in SoC, and here I am!

What do you enjoy doing when you are not working?

Hmm that’s a tough one. I sometimes spend my free time coding up my own iOS apps, or writing software for my drones.. but the beauty of my job is that I can count that as work!

Aside from being a geek… I love a good single malt and a great Cuban or Nicaraguan cigar. Hakushu + Cohiba Corona Especial. You can’t get better than that.

Quick-Fire: What’s your signature dish?

I make a pretty good ayam buah keluak! Also pork rib curry, beer pork ribs, and quite a few other things. I can cook almost any cuisine except Chinese. Chinese food is _hard_ with its elaborate ingredients and seasonings.

I mean.. take the famous sweet-sour pork. The sauce is made up of tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, pineapples, onions and peppers.. and because Chinese flavours are relatively delicate, you have to balance everything well. With Indian or Peranakan/Malay cuisine, you can just spice everything to death. But not with Chinese cuisine.

Vietnamese cuisine is very simple, but so delicious!

Best movie you’ve seen this year?

Don’t remember any good movies this year, but the best movie I’ve _ever_ watched in my life is Cloud Atlas. It’s a huge story spanning 500 years showing how one’s actions today can affect the fates and destinies of thousands of people, hundreds of years down the road.

“Death, life, birth. Future, present, past. Everything is connected"

Worst fear?

Hair in the bathroom drain grating. >.<

Guilty pleasures?

I absolutely love cold noodles. No, not soba, but normal fish ball noodles or wanton noodles. I’d buy a packet early in the morning, leave it until it’s nice and cold (which, in my office, is about 23 degrees C), and guzzle it down! When I tell anyone that they’d go “Ewww that’s disgusting!”

But it’s seriously good.

I also have an unhealthy obsession with African cuisine, though I’ve never tried it. But ugali with peanut stew? How can that not be good?

Three ultimate dinner party guests?

i) Adolf Hitler (no seriously… what the hell was he thinking?)

ii) Jesus (He’s God. How much cooler can you get?)

iii)  Elon Musk (Charming brilliant man!)

What would be your ‘dream’ Halloween costume?

I'd go with happy clown in full clown getup and huge shoes wielding a honker in one hand and a huge axe in the other. The idea is to hack someone to a couple of pieces, honk a few times and run away gleefully laughing. That would be legen...wait for it...dary. Legendary!

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

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

Mobashir

If there was one thing from an NUS canteen stall that Mohammad Mobashir could eat for the rest of his life, it would be the peanut butter waffles with an extra scoop of peanut butter (from The Terrace’s drink stall). He must have a thing for peanuts because he also thinks that the best hawker food in Singapore is the satay with peanut sauce that he gets from a stall at Lau Pa Sat. Fake English accents peeve him, but just give him some bubble wrap to pop (guiltily gleefully) and he’ll be all right. Mobashir also enjoys the satisfaction of being able to ‘tick off’ all the countries he’s travelled to and would like travel around the world in the future.

In his lab. (Photo credit: Nimantha Baranasuriya)

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Kolkata (Calcutta) which is referred to as the “City of Joy" in India. It is one of those cities which would embrace you and leave you with a bit of it in your heart. I’ve read somewhere and totally agree that if you want a clean city go to Delhi, if you want a city full of rich and famous people go to Mumbai, if you want a tech-savvy city go to Bangalore but if you want a city with a soul you can’t look beyond any other city other than Kolkata.

In Kerala (Photo credit: Nimantha Baranasuriya)

What are you studying at SoC?

I’m in the third year of my PhD in Computer Science. My research interest lies in the confluence of Wireless Sensor Networks and the Internet of Things (IoT). I aim to build communication protocols which would perform well in an environment consisting of numerous devices generating a lot of interference for each other. Hopefully when the IoT hype meets the Tech Reality, people might find my work useful. 

I can classify myself as a Full Stack Developer, a person who looks into the research and development of the different layers of the networking protocol suite for Internet of Things. With more and more technologies coming into existence ranging from ZigBee to Bluetooth to WiFi, a common communication paradigm would be necessary. I hope I would be able to fill this void. 

Describe your SoC experience.

SoC has given me a platform to play multiple roles during my stay here from being a student to an independent researcher to a tutor. I have been gifted with a blend of a motivating supervisor, helpful colleagues and curious students. 

The most challenging thing [I’ve faced here] was to adapt my eating habits. No, it is not that I have started eating particularly healthy meals like McDonalds (pun intended). Instead the change has been in my eating timings where the dinner ends around 6 in the evening. Surprisingly that was the time I used to finish eating my evening snacks back in India :P.

One improvisation to the campus according to me should be adding a lot of foosball tables. I seem to have acquired an addiction for it during my internship at Microsoft Research and somehow I'm finding it hard to overcome it :(. 

Besides doing research I manage to take some time out to travel to different countries. I love travelling and wished that my career had been oriented towards a profession which demanded travelling :(. Luckily as a graduate student we get to travel for conferences and I'm trying my best to make the most out of it! 

In Dubai

What did you want to be when you were younger? 

I wanted to become a cartoonist. I'm still interested in it but as a hobbyist instead of a profession. I enjoy sketching cartoon characters whenever I take time out of PhD and perhaps that's the reason why I enjoy movies like "Madagascar" instead of "My Fair Lady".

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

Something that surprises a lot of my friends is that I have not watched even a single episode of Friends or Big Bang Theory or the many other television series which are rated above 9 in IMDB and is bread and butter to all my friends. Trust me that I had to look into IMDB right now to get the list of popular TV series to answer this question :P.

What advice would you give a prospective PG student?

Keep calm and research hard. More importantly, stay away from discussion leading to "When are you graduating?" and profiles of fellow PhD candidates publishing like a machine. One thing that I have learnt from PhD is to accept "rejects" sportingly. Be it from a prospective girlfriend or a top rank conference. If we work hard enough we are definitely going to get what we dream for.

In Abu Dhabi

Quick-Fire. Worst fear?

Locked in a room with a dog. Even the tiniest Chihuahua scares the @#$@ out of me :-/

Three items you'd want if you were stranded on a deserted island for eternity?

1. Some bubble wrap

2. My Timberlands shoes

3. And of course decent supply of water 

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

Lusi

Yang Lusi’s worst fear is bad luck and she finds it annoying when people say ‘whatever’. Most people would be surprised to learn that only 14 people out of the 1.4 billion people in China share her name and she’s proud of her unique name even if most people do not know how to write her name correctly in Chinese. One day, after she retires, she would like to open a coffee shop and a hotpot restaurant, but for now, her goals are to become a professor and to travel to Korea.

 

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Chongqing (CQ), a municipality in Southwest of China. Hotpot was invented there. When it comes to CQ, people mostly talk about its hot (spicy) food and hot weather in summer (indeed, sometimes the temperature even reaches 40 Centigrade ☺).  But more importantly, Chongqing has the hottest girls in China. In my mind, our personalities are like what we eat: HOT! You will be overwhelmed with our warm heart and our passion. If you interact with people from Chongqing, you will also find they are straightforward and having diversities of minds. 

What are you studying at SoC?

I am in the 3rd year of my PhD in major of Information Systems. My research interest lies in crowd-based innovation and entrepreneurship. The current study I am working on helps to build theory on entrepreneurial learning on IT-enabled crowdfunding. My research provides practical insights for entrepreneurs to design experiences to promote entrepreneurial success. In the long run, my work will also provide actionable items for effective design of crowd-based platforms to energize innovation. 

What was your academic path before coming to SoC?

Before coming to NUS, I got my bachelor’s degree in software engineering from Sichuan University. In the eyes of most people, it is probably not a mainstream major among women. As I remember, there were only 40 women (out of around 300 students) in my batch. Although I have liked mathematics and logic since childhood, frankly speaking my first year in undergrad was far from easy because of my limited background knowledge in some of the seemingly “basic” classes in computing, like C programming. So, what I did was to be dedicated to my classes. Through diligent studies, I was very excited to be able to become one of the best students in this major. I love my major. It exposes me to the latest technological innovations. The best part was, I enjoyed the feeling of working with my teammates during projects. We struggled to think about our ideas. We stayed up late to debug for the program. We practiced again, again and again for our project presentations. But when we achieved success in the end, I have to say, the feeling was awesome!! Finally, all of my teammates (four in total) graduated with first-class honors.  

During my last year of undergrad, I applied to work in the machine intelligence lab in my university and gradually started to know academic research. For my final year project, I undertook a project to create a medical image processing platform. The goal of that project was to provide an program for doctors so that they can choose the appropriate segmentation, registration or three-dimensional visualization algorithms they want; as well as to provide a flexible toolkit of united interface for the engineers. Meanwhile, I got to know from my FYP advisor about the opportunity for doing PhD in School of Computing at NUS. I was very excited. Since my first year in undergrad, I was dreaming of studying abroad, to interact with people from diverse cultures and to work with them. Two months after I submit my application, I was so glad SoC gave me this opportunity. That’s the beginning of my current life… 

Why are you doing a PhD?

After I started my PhD journey, so many people have asked me the same question. I was asked this question in the interview when I applied for PhD here. To be honest, I do not think we need to find a reason to start a PhD. It seems like this decision is not like what a normal person would make, even though I do admit every PhD student has her/his own uniqueness (in other words, or his own version of “weirdo”, haha…). For me, if I have to find a reason, I would say it is because of “feeling”. I believe I am destined to do this PhD. Sounds irrational? Actually I think I am a rational person, most of the time (nobody is totally rational). Making a decision is like a coin toss. The moment you flip the coin, one of your subselves has made the decision for you. In my opinion, not every person has the chance to choose to do a PhD. Since you have the opportunity, why not?

Like most PhD students, my PhD journey in SoC is not easy.  I remember, in my first year, someone told me, doing a PhD is like getting on a five-year bus ride. Our choices of different buses decide our outcomes after five years. Have to say, finding the right bus (i.e, the research domain you like) to ride is hard, especially for first year student without much academic experience. The route of exploring topics is like a trial-and-error learning process. In my first two years of PhD, I explored several research directions and started to do some preliminary research. Finally, I decided on my research domain - ICT-enabled entrepreneurship and innovation, especially on crowdfunding. Yes, the feeling of finding a right topic is like falling in love with Mr. Right. It deserves the time and effort. I do love one saying from my advisor Professor Hahn: research is the process of re-searching. Now, I do enjoy the journey of exploring and the process of learning. 

After five semesters studying, I am starting to realize that what matters in this journey are not only what we learn during classes, but also the “capability to learn” and the “entrepreneurial attitude” towards work/life. In my opinion, doing a PhD is like being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is our attitude, and it determines how to think and act. We are our own bosses, converting ideas into work. And we need to shoulder the responsibility for our own decisions. After five years, we should be experts in our research domains. 

I really like a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people”. Exactly, the final purpose of working hard is not to surpass others, but to step into the world of great-minded people. That is true! I love every second of thinking about problems and discussing ideas with my professors and colleagues. 

The next time another person asks me “why do you do a PhD”, maybe I still will not have the exact answer. But there is one thing I can be sure of: if I could go back to two years ago, I would make the same decision without hesitation ☺

What do you enjoy doing when you are not studying or working?

In my spare time,… 

I love dancing and listening to music, especially Kpop and street jazz.  

I like singing. But need to find friends to sing with me in Singapore!

I need shopping, like skin care products. 

I enjoy chatting with friends. This makes me excited~

Quick-Fire! What do you do during Chinese New Year?

Be grateful for my 2014 and plan for my awesome coming year. Most importantly, (enjoy) nice chatting!

If you had to eat only one item from one of the NUS canteen stalls for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Yong Tau Foo at arts canteen ☺ 

Guilty pleasure?

Shopping? ☺

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

Kristina

Kristina Egorova can’t stand uncertainty and noisy construction work but can’t live without friends, wifi, and her ultimate guilty pleasure, travelling over the weekend! She’s currently in the third year of her PhD programme and is the graduate student representative for the Department of Information Systems.

Where did you grow up?

I was born and grew up in a very small, but interesting place – a tiny small town of Visaginas, Lithuania. Back in the days, the town had just 30,000 inhabitants, there were people from about 10 different nationalities working and living together. So from the very young age, I was exposed to the multicultural and multi-religious society. We had to learn Russian, Lithuanian and English or German, and some of us could choose Polish or Tatar, based on family background and preferences. We celebrated Christmas twice – first, we did it in December with Catholics, and second – in January with Orthodox people. I believe it shaped my future since it is relatively easy for me to pick up some words from new languages and I am very curious about different cultural traditions.

When I was 17, my family moved to Russia, and I discovered that even though I was Russian, I spoke with a funny “Baltic” accent and used slightly different expressions, but it disappeared in 4 months. After graduating from high school I moved again to Saint Petersburg for my undergraduate studies. In “classic” Russian universities, there are no bachelor and master degrees; instead, we have a “specialist” diploma and to get it, you have to study for five and half years and write a substantial final year project. I graduated with a degree in Information Security and, for the project, I focused on extending the software cost model COCOMO in order to fit in the security requirements of one of the Russian state security standards.

Three months after graduating from University, I got to know about National University of Singapore and research scholarships and opportunities from a Russian social networking site, which looks very similar to Facebook. It caught my attention and I dropped a long email with questions to Pavel Korshunov, who was a PhD candidate at the department of Computer Science at the time. He answered all the questions, and encouraged me to apply and pursue a degree from School of Computing. It took me almost a year to get to Singapore, and… 

What are you studying at SoC?

…here at SoC I continue the exploration of various aspects of Information Security – currently I am a PhD student at the Department of Information Systems and I have just started my 3rd year of study. My research interest is in the individual decision making in the context of Information Security and Privacy, and I seek the answers for the questions like: “Why do we violate security rules and regulations, even being aware about the consequences?” or “Why do our good intentions rarely lead to actions: e.g. why do we think about being careful online, but rarely do it, and click on suspicious links?”, and, on another hand, I’m interested in the criminological aspects of information related offences. With the answers, I hope to make our world a bit safer, especially given the persuasion of information technology and early age of exposure to it.

Why are you doing a PhD?

I have decided to apply for PhD because at some point I discovered that my current job and future career opportunities were not challenging anymore: I used to work as a technical writer, business analyst and project manager for several small and medium IT companies in Saint Petersburg, and it was a bit predictable and started to get boring. My last job was a bit more exciting, since we were creating a large-scale e-learning system, which had social networking sites features and was used by 30,000 schools, 5,000,000 school kids, 600,000 teachers and 2,000,000 parents in different regions in Russia. I had developed a reporting subsystem before joining the IS department in January 2013.

After two years of studies, reading and struggling, I realize I made the right choice, since I really enjoy thinking about research questions, looking for another angle, reading the literature and discussing the matter with colleagues and professors. After taking one of the NUS PhD-level courses, I learned about one very exciting thing – neuroplasticity: our brain physically changes with the changes in environment, behavior, thinking, and emotions. I believe it is amazing, and I feel I have changed a lot thanks to PhD training and exposure to the Singaporean mix of cultures, and food of course. The most important skill I have (almost) pursued is patience: in research, everything takes time, and you have to be patient and continue doing the subject you truly enjoy.

But to be honest, my first experience of Singapore was shocking: at the queue to Passport Check, I’ve discovered that I did not have the address of the hostel I had booked and asked my parents to send it to me over SMS. They sent a wrong address, and after climbing up and down the stairs of two wrong hostels I checked the emails and arrived to the right place, which was at Geylang area, and I did not know a single thing about it! In few days, I had to move to the Campus and a nice taxi driver did not how to get to College Avenue East and have never heard about University Town. Over time, I’ve learned how to get around with mobile apps for everything, and a Singlish dictionary book made my life much easier. Highly recommended to new students!

Anyway, this year I am a graduate student representative for the Information Systems department. Apart from the Welcome tea, which was held on January 8th, my task is to serve as an intermediary between students and the department, and I am willing to take questions, comments and suggestions from students and translate them as summarized opinion to the department. Privacy is guaranteed, as a researcher of privacy and security, I know it is important. So you can find me at Information Systems Research Lab 3, Facebook or drop me an email at kristina@comp.nus.edu.sg - please don’t be shy!

Outside of School of Computing, I love travelling (I actively participate at Couchsurfing and once hiked down the Grand Canyon), sending and receiving paper postcards (using www.postcrossing.com) and Brazilian martial art of Capoeira and social dancing.

I would like to use this opportunity to invite everyone for 2 dancing classes of Brazilian Forro, which I and dancing partner will be teaching this 2nd & 9th February at the PGPR Multipurpose Hall as part of the 100MIN Enrichment series of workshops.

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

Night at Museum 3

Worst experience with public transportation?

Public Bus ride from Probolingo to Surabaya – 4 hours in smoking (!) non-aircon bus with friendly curious locals, some random people selling food and playing guitar for money

Best hawker stall in Singapore?

Al Amaan @Clementi Road

If you could eat only three food items for the rest of your life, what would they be?

Young Tau Fou Laksa, Malay Cofta and Laban

Three ultimate dinner party guests? 

Dan Ariely, Heng Swee Keat and James Hetfield

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

Steven

Dr. Steven Halim grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia and moved to Singapore to do his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at SoC. When that wasn’t quite enough, he stayed on to do his PhD, got his doctoral degree in 2010 and then landed a job here. He still looks young enough to be mistaken for one of the (postgraduate) students here and when he isn’t working, he enjoys ‘revisiting’ his childhood toys – Lego Technic and Mindstorms.

Steven and his family at Legoland, Malaysia

What are you working on and why are you passionate about it?

Currently, visualgo.net, which is a tool I built to help with the visualisation of data structures and algorithms through animation. It combines my passion of teaching algorithms and the visualization work that I did back in my PhD days. When more and more CS-based Universities pick up visualgo.net, I think it should reduce the usage of static PowerPoint (or even manual hand-drawn explanations) to explain the operations of basic data structures/algorithms. The online quiz side will also eliminate the need to ask trivial questions in final examinations anymore.

 
Describe your SoC experience. 

[The part I enjoy the most is] when I can make my student's jaw drops after explaining a certain cool concepts in class. [But the part I find the most challenging is] marking... I hate marking so much that I tried to write programs to automate the process :O.

I have been in SoC for 14 years now so there are many [people who have made impressions on me]. But if I have to choose one, I pick Associate Professor Tan Sun Teck who took me as part-time TAs for his CS1102 module in 2005-2008 period, collaborated in ICPC and IOI activities, and recommended me to stay on as Lecturer here.

I like computing so much and being in SoC is a natural fit. I’d probably suffer if I had picked another course of study for my Undergraduate degree.

What do you count as your most significant achievements to date? 

Before 2008, I thought training a team that can qualify to ACM ICPC World Finals or get Gold medal in IOI was a super achievement (because I had never done so before as a student). Fast forward 6 years later, I have been to ACM ICPC World Finals 3 times (with our team), prepared a team that won an ACM ICPC Regional Contest 2 times, trained Singaporeans who brought home 4 IOI Gold medals, and all these are still ongoing. The core achievement is a system of training that ensures continuity of these (good) results. 

Currently my competitive programming training schedule is like this:
Jan-Apr: CS3233
Mar: National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI)
May: Asia Pacific Informatics Olympiad (APIO); ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals with NUS team 1
Jun: Singapore (SG) International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) Team Intensive Training
Jul: IOI with SG IOI team
Aug-Sep: Train and select new team members for NUS ICPC teams
Oct-Nov: Typical ACM ICPC Regional Season
Dec: SG NOI training
Then repeat for another year…

[I pursued all this] because I had never won any programming competition during my student days. The turning point seems to be 2011, when SoC decided to keep me as Lecturer here. With more job stability, I can setup that system of training. [It was] heavy work at the beginning to train the first few students. The senior ICPC+IOI students from 2008-2013 era now help me train the current batch of competitors (2014-15). The system is now good enough that I can step to the side and watch it run (and still produce good results).

What did you want to be when you were younger and is that still an interest of yours?

My childhood dream was to be someone who speaks in front of many people and those people listen attentively to me. There are not many jobs in the world where I can do that. Being a lecturer is one such job and yes it is still my interest :).

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

NUS SoC will host the ACM ICPC Programming Regional Contest in Singapore in Sep and Dec 2015. I encourage SoCians, especially CS students [I am planning to have prizes for teams with female member(s)], to form teams of three and join this prestigious programming competition right here in NUS.

Quick-fire! New Year’s resolution?

Do some exercise each week.

Worst fear?

Cockroaches

Guilty pleasure?

Ice-cream

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

ViSenze’s Li Guangda

Li Guangda, who hails from the coastal city of Tianjin in northern China, completed his PhD at SoC in 2011. He is now the Chief Technology Officer at ViSenze, a start-up he co-founded with Professor Chua Tat-Seng. As you will glean, he is a very busy man and yet still managed to find the time to share his experiences with us.

What do you do now? 

I am the CTO and a co-founder of ViSenze. We build visual search and recognition platform, with the focus on building scalability, latency and performance robustness in a highly distributed, multi-component AWS architecture serving hundreds of millions of queries each day.

What are you working on and why are you passionate about it?

I believe visual search using image as input is another pillar of search engine besides the ordinary text and speech input. And that’s what we do. We are helping companies and developers to power their own products and applications by using of our visual search and recognition platform.

What effect do you think your area of work will have on the world in the next decade?

More and more people will use mobile phone camera to interact with the physical world and look for information. ViSenze is developing this technology.

Briefly describe your experience as a SoC student.

When I was doing academic research, I enjoyed the feeling of pushing boundaries of technologies. But now, since I work more on practical problems, I am happier to see my products being used by real people every day. My favourite thing about studying at SoC was that I really made a lot of friends, whom I still meet up with very often after graduation.

Which faculty members made impressions on you?

My supervisor, Professor Chua Tat-Seng, who is also a co-founder of ViSenze. He guided me throughout my PhD and gave me enough freedom to try new directions and make mistakes. He is a natural leader who influences me much. I have also learned a lot from him about critical, innovative and independent thinking.

Is there anything you would have done differently during your time here?

I should have travelled to more places. I hardly went to any place for holiday since the company was founded due to the busy schedule.

If there is one thing you would change about SoC, what would it be?

There are quite a lot interesting small and medium size high-tech companies in Singapore. But based on my experience so far, many students have only heard about the big names like banks and listed companies, and very few would show interest in SMEs (Small & Medium Enterprises). Maybe it’s because most SMEs don’t market themselves well enough but I think SoC should have more intro sessions about the local tech scene and encourage students to join the local high-tech industry. Fresh graduates will develop their professional skills very quickly by working on real large-scale application and practicing the stat-of-art software development methodology. In addition, there are local tech companies, like us, willing to offer attractive remuneration package and also a promising career path.

What do you count as your most significant achievements to date? 

During my last year of PhD study, I planned to commercialize my PhD research. Switching from thinking academically to that of a real business perspective was one of the challenges I was faced with. It was a tough process but I am quite lucky to get through it. Of course there is still a lot to learn every day but I enjoy what I’m doing now. I am very proud that ViSenze is attracting more talented fresh graduates and alumni from NUS who will be joining us this year.

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