| Name | Research Interests |
| Asst Prof Andres Carlos Luco | My research interests fall mainly into meta-ethics, moral psychology, and social & political philosophy. I am interested in such topics as the rationality of moral action; the psychology of moral motivation; the evolution of morality; social norms; theories of well-being; distributive justice; and human rights. |
| Asst Prof Andrew T. Forcehimes | Metaethics
Normative Ethics
Political Philosophy |
| Prof Chan Kam Leung Alan | Chinese Philosophy and Religion; Hermeneutics and Critical Theory; Comparative Philosophy and Religion |
| Dr Chiang Hui Ling Michelle | Modernism
Madness in Literature
Literature and the Philosophy of Mind
Literature and the Philosophy of Time
Samuel Beckett
Henri Bergson
Gao Xingjian |
| Asst Prof Christopher Holman | My current research interests are in the history of political thought (particularly early-modern and modern), contemporary political theory, critical theory, democratic theory, political anthropology, and psychoanalysis and politics. |
| Asst Prof Christopher Peter Trigg | The American Puritans
The Radical Enlightenment
Transcendentalism
Political Theology
Religion in American Literature |
| Asst Prof Chuang Christina | Ethics, History of Ethics, Moral Psychology, Indian Philosophy |
| Assoc Prof Daniel Keith Jernigan | Modern and Contemporary British Literature; Modern and Postmodern Drama; Narrative Theory; Playwriting |
| Assoc Prof Hallam Stevens | My research focuses on the intersection between information technology and biotechnology. My first book is an historical and ethnographic account of the changes wrought to biological practice and biological knowledge by the introduction of the computer. Especially in highly computerized fields such as genomics, the computer has changed how biologists work, how biologists collaborate, and how biologists make knowledge.
I am currently pursuing two ongoing research projects. The first is an attempt to develop new methods of studying scientific practice by deploying tools from performance studies. In collaboration with a performance studies scholar, I am examining spaces of biomedical work in East Asia in an effort to deepen our understanding of how such spaces fit into the economic, social, and political context of the cities in which they sit. Sites under examination include Biopolis in Singapore and BGI in Shenzhen.
The second project examines the emergence of "big data." This apparently new field is quite suddenly having an immense impact on politics, the economy, and many aspects of our social world. What is really new about big data? What kinds of changes may it bring? Who will benefit? Historians of technology, in particular, are well equipped to ask and answer such important questions about this emerging phenomenon.
In addition to these projects, I have just completed a general audience book that examines that provides a broad overview of the social, political, and economic effects of biotechnology. The book will be published under the title "Biotechnology & Society" in 2016 (University of Chicago Press).
I am interested in supervising PhD students on topics related to the history of the life sciences, the history of information technology, and science and technology studies. |
| Asst Prof Han Sam | (1) The dynamic of religion and digital technology in contemporary American Christianity
(2) Digital-diasporic religious practices in Asia
(3) Death and mourning in the digital age
(4) The religious discourse of technology as sinful
(5) General social and cultural theory (e.g., affect theory, post-structuralism, post-modernism, psychoanalysis, network theory)
(6) Parochialism in popular representations of “genius” in media depictions of US ethnic minorities |
| Prof John Allen Paulos | Originally mathematical logic, specifically model theory, then philosophy and probability, and then writing - books, articles, essays
for a variety of publications. Several books became bestsellers. They're described here: http://www.math.temple.edu/~paulos/books.html |
| Dr Koh Teck Seng | Quantum Information and Computation
In the field of quantum information and computation, some of the quantum computer architectures that I am interested to study include semiconductor quantum dots and hybrid photonic-solid state systems. Such systems hold the promise of scalability due to their small (~100 nm) dimensions as well as the integrability with current microelectronics technologies. Some of the theoretical goals are to understand the performance of various quantum control and entanglement schemes, how decoherence properties and qubit interactions scale with increasing number and connectivity of qubits, and the investigation of novel quantum algorithms. With the scaling up of qubits into a quantum network, it therefore becomes important to understand the behaviour of networks and their properties, and how they perform in applications such as quantum key distribution and quantum state transfer, as well as with novel quantum algorithms. For example, the recently proposed quantum version of Google’s PageRank algorithm was found to outperform the classical version.
Nanoscale Device Physics
In studying how a quantum computer may be realised in solid state architectures, it is natural to study the Physics of nanoscale devices. In this field, beside quantum computing devices, I am interested in spintronics and valleytronics device Physics. In such investigations, it is important to understand the properties of the host material and the architecture of the device. For example, in silicon and graphene that such single electron quantum dot devices may be fabricated in, valley states may play an important role in the device Physics. I am interested to study how valley and spin degrees of freedom may be harnessed to store, manipulate and readout a bit of information.
Foundational Issues in Quantum Mechanics
I am interested in understanding foundational issues in Quantum Mechanics. Is the quantum state description a mere mathematical tool? Does a pure quantum state correspond directly to reality or only some information about a certain aspect of reality, that upon measurement is revealed to us? In the ontological vs epistemological debate over the nature of quantum reality, can we deduce no-go theorems that allow experimenters to test and resolve the issue? |
| Prof Li Chenyang | Chenyang Li's research interest is primarily in Chinese philosophy. He has published extensively in classical Confucianism. His work also covers feminist philosophy, democracy, and human value. |
| Asst Prof Marijke Van Kets | Research on Cinematography
A study on the perception of cinematic technique and its influence on film language.
The research focuses on the use of cinematic technique by the director of photography when shooting a feature film. Is this juggling with technical properties: lenses, lights, speed, shutter, f-stop and so on, effective? Can cinematography influence how audiences perceive movies?
I argue that the application of cinematic technique adds additional layers of meaning, nuance and emotional context to shots and scenes along with their objective content. The study also suggests that the use of cinematographic differentials like composition, three-dimensional field and lens language, contributes to the film language. |
| Dr Melvin Chen | Philosophy & literature
Metaethics
Aesthetics
Moral philosophy
Cognitive neuroscience & value
Theory of the imagination
Narrative theory
Literary modernism
Buddhist philosophy |
| Asst Prof Nanci Takeyama | Three main research interests:
-Symbolic meaning of traditional forms in Asia
-Preservation of Asian traditional arts and crafts, heritage management
-Design for social innovation, design thinking, participatory design
Areas of professional expertise:
-Corporate Identity
-Package Design
-Typography, applied typography
-Editorial Design
-Information architecture
-Environmental Design
Important research key words:
-Meaning of symbols in Asian traditions (crafts, rituals, myths)
-Mandala
-Cosmology |
| Asst Prof Ngoi Guat Peng | Chinese Intellectual History
Daoxue Neo-Confucianism
Religion Syncretism in late Ming
Singapore/ Malaysia History and Literature
Malay Communist and history Discourse
Literary and Citizenship |
| Asst Prof Olav Benjamin Vassend | Philosophy of science
Epistemology
Decision theory
Foundations of statistics |
| Asst Prof Preston Huw Richards Greene | Ethics, Decision Theory |
| Asst Prof Qu Jingyi | Classical Chinese Literature & History from the Han through Tang periods; Literary Historiography; Western Sinology; Literature Pedagogy; Practical Writing & Socio-Culture |
| Prof Randy John La Polla | Sino-Tibetan Linguistics
Linguistic Typology
Historical linguistics (including Grammaticalization and Sino-Tibetan reconstruction)
Functional Syntax (esp. Role & Reference Grammar and Systemic Functional Grammar)
Pragmatics (particularly Relevance Theory)
Anthropological Linguistics (Asian languages on which I have done fieldwork: Cambodian, Chinese dialects [Southern Fujian, Beijing subdialects, Shanghai, Guangzhou dialects], Dulong [1st Township, 3rd Township, 4th Township, Nujiang dialects], Qiang [Ronghong, Qugu dialects], Rawang [Mvtwang, Dvru dialects], Tagalog, Vietnamese.) |
| Asst Prof Richard Alan Barlow | James Joyce
Modernism
Scottish Literature and Philosophy
Irish Studies |
| Asst Prof Sung Hiu Chuk Winnie | For the past few years my primary research project has been on Confucian thinker Xunzi's thought, focusing in particular on interpreting and working through the implications of Xunzi’s concept of xin (the heart/mind).
I am also interested in moral psychology and issues related to self-knowledge and self-consciousness. Some smaller projects I am currently working on include hypocrisy, self-deception, loyalty, and epistemology of belief. |
| Assoc Prof Teru Miyake | My main field of research is Philosophy of Science. |
