11th August 2025
Valedictorian Hall of Fame / Mark Seow Wei Lun
Mark Seow Wei Lun
Doctor of Philosophy
Integrative Sciences & Engineering Programme
My name is Mark, and I have recently completed my PhD at the NUS Graduate School, under the Integrative Sciences and Engineering Programme (ISEP). My research was in cognitive and computational neuroscience, where I studied how humans and monkeys learn and memorise information in groups called chunks. Beyond the lab, I enjoy playing the piano, video games, and practising aikido.
What sparked your interest in this field?
I have always had a passion for solving word and logic puzzles, and finding better strategies to solve them. That curiosity eventually shaped my central research question: why is it difficult for us to remember a seemingly random sequence of letters like “OCPMELPXORLBME”, but so much easier when we use a cognitive strategy like chunking, when the letters are grouped meaningfully to form the words “COMPLEXPROBLEM”?
Any key breakthroughs or proud milestones in your work so far?
Using behavioral experiments and computational models, I studied how information is organised differently in our brains when we use chunking strategies. My proudest milestone was representing NUS at the global stage and winning the Universitas 21 Three Minute Thesis competition, where I had to present my research to a broad non-specialist audience in under three minutes.
Failures are not a flaw of the process; they are the process. And the lessons we learn will be our hard-earned strength.
If you could fast forward 10 years, what impact would you hope your research has made?
I hope that my research will have played an important role, however small, in understanding how our brain ultimately learns and processes information. Hopefully, that knowledge will have informed how students are taught in classrooms, how the elderly are rehabilitated, and how interventions are designed for neurodegeneration.
Dr. Mark Seow Wei Lun (second row, fifth from right) with his PhD graduating class at the 2025 commencement ceremony.
In this thesis project we call life, our core methodology will be resilience — to face complex, evolving challenges, to fail, to adapt and to try again.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone considering a PhD in your programme or in general?
Build strong relationships and emotional support structures, both within and outside your lab. Your supervisors, lab mates, fellow graduate students, and your family all play a vital role in this challenging, and sometimes isolating, journey. Between me and my peers, there have been many failed experiments, detours, and a lot of troubleshooting. It is in those moments, that being supported by a community that understands the journey of research goes a very long way—not just for fresh ideas and new collaborations, but also more importantly for our mental health and a sustainable research career.
LEFT IMAGE: Dr. Mark Seow Wei Lun (first from left) with NUSGS staff and his fellow PhD Graduates. RIGHT IMAGE: Dr. Mark Seow Wei Lun photographed in front of University Hall.
Let us continue experimenting, let us stay resilient, and above all, let us never forget that the work of life, like any meaningful research, is never done alone.
Having graduated, what do you think your next steps would be?
Throughout my research career, I found myself constantly returning to the same questions: What is the impact of my work? What good can my work do for society?
These questions still guide me today, as I embark on a new journey as a data scientist for NUS in the Office of Data and Intelligence. Here, I aspire to use data-driven methods to inform how higher education institutes can deliver greater impact in research and education.
My journey ahead may look a bit different than the one I have just completed, but my aspirations remain the same: to use data and research to transform the way we think about and approach problems, so that we may be better prepared for whatever complex challenges we may face, whether individually or as a society.