ABOUT ME

I am currently a research fellow at the School of Information, University of Michigan. Broadly, I am interested in designing and studying the use of technology that enables amateurs and professionals to collaborate across organizational and/or geographic boundaries. This broad interest in collaborative technologies has led me to study large scale scientific collaboratories, the use of blogs and social tagging in the classroom, the implementation of wikis in organizations, and lately, the sharing and reuse of user-generated content in online communities.

My goal as a researcher is to investigate and design systems that encourage individuals to share, participate and engage in prosocial behavior in online environments. Presently, my research focuses on investigating the patterns, dynamics and motivations of prosociality on the internet. Specifically, I investigate how and why people share user-generated media content with each other. In my investigations, I employ a mixed methodological toolkit combining data analytics with ethnographic work. The findings generated by my research can be used to design, develop, and evaluate systems that encourage participation, cooperation and sharing.

My academic advisor is Stephanie Teasley and I have been associated with the Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work (CREW). I have also worked on The Science of Collaboratories and The BIT320 Learning Remix projects. In Summer 2010, I was a research intern with Ayman Shamma and Elizabeth Churchill at the Internet Experiences Group, Yahoo! Research. During Summer 2008, I was awarded an NSF fellowship to work with Lonce Wyse and Giorgos Cheliotis at the Arts and Creativity Lab in the National University of Singapore. Currently I am employed on an NSF DataNet project called SEAD (Sustainable Environment - Actionable Data).

RANDOM BITS FROM MY PAST

HCI work:

Visual Arts work:

    I had the great privilege of being able to work with Singaporean dramaturg, Kuo Pao Kun, who passed away in 2002. I wrote a Thesis titled "From the Margins to the Centre: An exploration of the Singapore Identity in the theatre of Kuo Pao Kun".
    I used to be a teacher/lecturer of English Literature and Drama in Singapore.
    I used to workshop and devise plays with my students. I am very proud of them all (Shades of grey, Pretty good year, zeropointone, Eden), though I think that my students aren't aware of how proud I am of their work. One of the plays even won a Silver Award in the Singapore Youth Festival 2000.
    I have written, directed and exhibited an experimental video entitled "EMAS" at Moving Images: Local Flavor at the Substation. I am too embarressed by the immature and naive nature of this video to present it here :)
    I have conducted workshops and presented on the topics of "Creativity" and "The use of Role-play in problem based learning".

Popular Culture Journalism:

    I spent my free time during my undergraduate years as an entertainment/pop culture journalist. Highlights of my work can be found below.
    Interview with Sonic Youth
    Circa 1996. This article was co-written with Lim Cheng Tju. We were thoroughly amateurish and unprepared for the interview. Click on the image for the article for the article. But proceed at your own risk, it's 12Mb!!!




    Interview with Shonen Knife
    I remember being really excited about this interview assignment. There was clearly some miscommunication that took place in the interview ... Read the article and you'll see what I mean ...




    TV's a real turn on
    One of my first assignments. I was tasked with thinking about the state of television in Singapore as the arrival of Cable TV and the privatization of the national broadcasters took place in 1997.



National Service:

    I was an Armoured Trooper with the rank of Corporal in the 42nd Singapore Armoured Regiment from 1989 - 1993.
    I was the captain of the Battalion Rugby team. We emerged champions in the Armour formation rugby tournament 1992.
    I was an "Operationally ready" trooper (Reserve service) in the 424th Singapore Armoured Regiment from 1994 - 2003.

Community Service:

    I have spent time with the Hmong children at the Catholic Mission Center of Wian Kean, Chiang Rai, Thailand. I have been to Wian Kean twice, once in 1999 and another time in 2002. The first time I went there was to produce a documentary video with my students. My second trip there, I was the project leader for an overseas community involvement project.