Nationality: Singapore
Current Job: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, United States
Graduation: Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Year 2017
Undergraduate: National University of Singapore, Singapore
"Find a mentor for your career, and look beyond Singapore; go international."
In retrospect, would you still have chosen to do a PhD? Why?
Yes, I would still have done my PhD. As a patient of childhood asthma and allergy, I wasn’t able to be as active as my peers and had to skip couple of physical education lessons. I wasn’t able to become a competitive athlete as well, so it had been my childhood dream to help discover novel therapies that can promote the resolution of asthma, not simply symptomatic treatments of today to relief each asthma attack/episode. I was fortunate to join the lab of Prof. Fred Wong which embarked my journey into asthma research. Upon graduation, I found another lab in Harvard Medical School, Prof. Bruce Levy, who is the current chief in pulmonary and critical care medicine, to explore resolution in inflammation in the airways. We are making new discoveries on eosinophils, a major cell involved in the pathogenesis of asthma, and like every other cell, it has dual roles or more. Targeting the right endotype of eosinophil may be key in promoting the recovery of asthma, based on our current research data at Harvard.
On hindsight, would you still have chosen NUS to do your PhD?
Definitely. On a personal level, my parents suffers from high blood pressure and type II diabetes, so it was agreed upon with my brother for one of us to stay back in Singapore to be with them. Looking back, I believe I made the right choice. Since I wish to pursue a career on academia, completing my PhD at NUS allowed me to know many peers and staff beyond my own department, when I had chances during collaboration of projects. I had a better understanding of the research landscape in Singapore, and hopefully a better grasp on what’s needed to progress for my career. I would still choose to pursue my PhD in NUS, then obtain overseas experience in another laboratory overseas for my post-doc, before returning to NUS to apply for a faculty position.
On hindsight, would you have chosen the same research supervisor for your PhD?
Yes, certainly. Completing my undergrad in NUS allowed me to work with my PhD research supervisor during my honours project. This confirmed the good working relationship I had with him, and it was an easy choice to continue my PhD with him. He wasn’t simply my project supervisor, but he gave great advice for pursuing my career as well. He was both my research and career mentor back then, and I am still in contact with him today after leaving his lab – for potential collaborations, or even advice/tips for my next steps in my career.
How did NUS prepare you for your career?
Comparing research equipment and facilities between Harvard Med and NUS, I must say that there’s not much difference. It might be tough catching up to the latest technologies available for research, but it is the human mind that set limitations, not equipment per se. I had first-hand experience on both sides, brainstorming and troubleshooting as a team to address research questions. I was the recipient of the NUS-OPF as well, which provided partial funding for my post-doc experience. It provided me the competitive edge needed to progress in my career.
How did your experiences as a graduate student shape and guide you in your current career?
Firstly, the research quality of my projects back then as a graduate student was great. We had multiple publications in high-impact journals, to the point even Harvard Med commended on my research progress back in 2016/7. I was offered to present my work in a research seminar at Harvard Med, which I obtained several post-doc offers after the seminar. Besides research projects, my supervisor tasked me to assist him in couple other administrative work, which helped me greatly as I look back now, to better prepare me when I have a lab of my own in the future. I had minimal adjustments when I started my post-doc at Harvard, as administratively, it was largely the same in NUS.
Suggest 2 or 3 things that graduate students should do to prepare for their professional careers?
I wouldn’t comment on research projects as this should be the top priority for every graduate student – keeping awesome records on what’s done, analyzing data methodologically and publishing as much as you can.
1) networking – partake in conferences and competitions within NUS to know beyond your department. attend overseas conference to get to know a couple career mentors (this was how I found a Nobel Laureate to be my career mentor, among other international profs).
2) be prepared mentally – research can be a grueling experience when you’re in a down-phase with failed experiments one after another. You simply have to push on, with calculated next steps of course, to address your research questions and understand what went wrong.
Name 2-3 things you wished you had been told when you started graduate school?
My graduate experience was almost completely positive to be honest, largely because of the good working relationship I had with my supervisor.
1) make sure you find the “right” supervisor that fits you, as much as you fit them
2) find out funding mechanisms beyond NUS that supports your opportunities to attend more overseas conferences
Briefly share something fun in your graduate journey at NUS that you remember.
Rather than one particular event, I would rather comment on my overall 4.5 yrs during my PhD. The first 2 years was really simply advancing in your research topics and completing the first project, many late nights and weekends and failed experiments. Once I had it done with a publication in sight, things began to progress quickly for me and my subsequent 2 years later was fun. I had time to be an emcee for an international meeting held in Singapore, assisted in the first YLL-SoM graduate pamphlet, taking part in NUS AGSC (changed to ABSC now) and knowing more friends, and the camaraderie formed with my labmates and beyond.
Any other words of wisdom to share?
It’s a summary of what I had mentioned above. It would be best to find a career mentor (besides your research supervisor), who can better advise you on things to do from the start. I had a great mentor (senior grad. student) in the lab who helped shaped my career too. After he left the lab, I expanded my network beyond Singapore, finding new career mentors internationally (there’s an option for most conferences to pair yourself with a mentor, and I did this for most conferences I attended). I volunteered to help out for a few conferences in NUS or within Singapore, and that’s how I met a Nobel Laureate, who became my friend and career mentor since 2015.
I began preparing my CV at the end of my 1st year during my PhD and realized the gaps. I started pushing myself to fill these gaps, be it collaboration to expand publications, or attending conferences/summit to expand my network. Imagine you’re the employer at the next phase and what you think they’d be looking for, and how to establish yourself above your peers to have the cutting edge to be selected – it became a habit to update my CV every 2 months or so, and I continuously strive to improve my CV/career at every point. On the note of finding career mentors (the paragraph above), always maintain contact with your mentors. They might be busy to approach you, so don’t hold back and approach them every quarter or biannually to have a chat with them (I still send emails to my mentors couple times a year).