Work Experience
GovTech Singapore Singapore
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Jun 2024 – Present
Technical Lead (Responsible AI), AI Practice
- Lead the research and experimentation roadmap for AI safety, robustness, fairness, and evaluation, taking into account the unique context and needs of the Singapore public sector. Past (public) work include:
- LionGuard: Developed the first Singapore-contextualised moderation classifier for LLM applications, with official support for all 4 official languages in Singapore. Accepted at COLING 2025 and EMNLP 2025.
- Agentic Risk & Capability Framework: Designed a capability-centric approach to managing risks of agentic systems, adopted by GovTech Singapore and cited by IMDA and CSA. Accepted at AAAI 2026 (AIGOV Workshop) and IASEAI 2026.
- Safety testing for LLM apps: Synthesized a systematic methodology for running safety tests for LLM apps in an organisation, operationalised through Litmus and implemented across the Singapore public sector. Accepted as spotlight paper at ICML 2025 (TAIG Workshop).
- MinorBench: Developed the first education safety benchmark globally to assess LLM chatbot safety for children (<18 years old). Accepted at ICLR 2025 (AI4CHL Workshop).
- KnowOrNot: Built a Python package for estimating out-of-knowledge-base robustness for LLM chatbots. Accepted at AAAI 2026 (AIR-FM Workshop).
- Safety tuning in Singlish: Improved safety performance of SEA-LION model by conducting DPO and KTO safety tuning using unsafe Singlish data. Accepted as top paper at AAAI 2026 (LM4UC Workshop).
- Fairness in hiring systems: Measured gender and racial bias when using LLMs to score and rank CVs, even when the name, gender, and race are hidden.
- Responsible AI Playbook: Published a playbook covering key concepts and insights for AI safety, robustness, fairness, and evaluation, along with a live model benchmark across these areas.
- Establish technical partnerships with both local and international stakeholders to collaborate on key workstreams on AI safety, including IMDA, CSA, AI Singapore, SUTD, Thoughtworks, and Google. Some examples include:
- Building partnerships with industry and academic experts on applied Responsible AI research, such as Associate Professor Roy Ka-Wei Lee on multilingual safety (LionGuard), agentic governance (ARC Framework), and fairness testing (hiring fairness).
- Contributing to industry guidelines on GenAI and agentic governance, such as IMDA's Model Governance Framework for Agentic AI and Starter Kit for Testing LLM-Based Applications, as well as CSA's draft Addendum on Securing Agentic AI.
- Lead and mentor 3 applied AI scientists and 6 interns on their technical work in Responsible AI areas and their career development.
- Lead the research and experimentation roadmap for AI safety, robustness, fairness, and evaluation, taking into account the unique context and needs of the Singapore public sector. Past (public) work include:
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Jan 2026 – Present
Assistant Head, AI Practice
- Lead the department's strategy, engagement, and partnerships team to amplify the department's impact and thought leadership throughout the Singapore public sector.
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Aug 2023 – Jun 2024
Data Scientist, Data Science and AI Division
- Researched and consolidated MLOps best practices into a playbook, applying past experiences from the Ministry of Manpower.
- Collaborated with two government agencies to test the MLOps best practices and gather feedback.
- Worked on an internal whitespace project on responsible AI.
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Feb 2022 – Aug 2023
Forward-Deployed Team Lead, Data Science and AI Division
- Led a team of 3 data scientists to develop data science and machine learning solutions for policymaking, operations, and customer service at the Ministry of Manpower.
- Contributed to the ministry's data, AI, and data science product strategies.
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Sep 2020 – Feb 2022
Data Scientist, Data Science and AI Division
- Worked on a variety of data science and policy simulation projects for various public sector agencies.
- Selected to be part of GovTech's Technology Associate Programme (TAP).
National University of Singapore Singapore
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Aug 2024 – Present
Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Statistics and Data Science
- Teach an undergraduate course (50-60 students) on data science and public policy (DSA4264: Sense-making Case Analysis — Public Policy and Society).
Ministry of Digital Development and Information Singapore
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Jan 2025 – Jan 2026
Senior Manager, National AI Group
- Develop governance policies for the use of Generative AI across the Singapore public sector.
- Implement and communicate these policies to public sector agencies, balancing compliance with the ability to innovate.
- Work on AI governance workstreams relating to AI safety and security.
- Deliver training and workshops on AI governance to public sector officers.
Lovelytics Washington D.C., U.S.A.
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Jul 2019 – Jul 2020
Lead Data Scientist
- Led product development for machine learning solutions and products.
- Worked on projects with external clients (including the World Bank and FTI Consulting), covering custom API integration, Tableau extension development, and geospatial data analysis.
Publications
AI Safety
Accepted at ICML 2025 Workshop on Technical AI Governance (spotlight paper)
MinorBench: A hand-built benchmark for content-based risks for children (2025)Workshop
Accepted at ICLR 2025 Workshop on AI for Children
Accepted at ICLR 2025 Workshop on Building Trust in Language Models and Applications
Accepted at AAAI 2026 Workshop on Language Models for Underserved Communities (top paper)
LionGuard: A Contextualised Moderation Classifier to Tackle Local Unsafe Content (2024)Conference
Accepted at COLING 2025 Industry Track
LLM Robustness
Know Or Not: a library for evaluating out-of-knowledge base robustness (2025)Workshop
Accepted at AAAI 2026 Workshop on Assessing and Improving Reliability of Foundation Models in the Real World
AI Fairness
Under review
AI Governance
Accepted at IASEAI 2026 and AAAI 2026 Workshop on AI Governance
Algorithmic Fairness: Challenges and Opportunities for Artificial Intelligence Governance (2022)Journal
Published in Singapore Academy of Law Journal Special Issue on AI Governance
Education
Columbia University New York, U.S.A.
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Sep 2018 – Jun 2019
Master of Arts in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences (Data Science Focus)
- 3rd place in Columbia University's DevFest 2019
- Top 4 winner of Columbia Data Science Institute's Data Art Contest 2019
University of Oxford Oxford, United Kingdom
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Oct 2015 – Jun 2018
Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics and Economics
- President, Oxford Microfinance Initiative (2017–18)
- President, Oxford University Photography Society (2016)
- Finalist, OC&C Stratathon 2017 (Oxford)
- Finalist, Public Policy Challenge 2016 (Singapore)