I am Principal Investigator of the Chronobiology and Sleep Laboratory at Duke-NUS Medical School. Myresearch program focuses on understanding the role of circadian rhythms and sleep in regulating human
physiology and performance. Disruption of circadian rhythms and sleep is associated with negative health
outcomes ranging from metabolic disorders to psychiatric illnesses, and also increases risk of occupational
and vehicular accidents. Healthy sleep is also important for workers and students to reach their full learning
potential. Interventions for circadian misalignment, sleepiness, and disordered sleep are therefore important
for improving health, reducing injuries, and optimizing cognitive performance and learning. With these goals
in mind, my program has focused on 5 research themes: (1) light regulation of circadian rhythms and other
non-visual responses; (2) effects of circadian rhythms and sleep deprivation on metabolism; (3) methods
for monitoring and predicting individual differences in response to sleep deprivation; (4) the role of sleep
health in learning and well-being in adolescents; and (5) methods for scalable phenotyping of students’
sleep and learning behavior using digital traces. The core mission of my research program is to develop
and test sleep-related strategies for improving health, cognitive performance, and safety.
My work from Duke-NUS has been published in top journals including Nature Human Behaviour, PNAS,
SLEEP, The Journal of Neuroscience, and Ophthalmology. In my career, I have co-authored 92 publications
with 10,770 total citations and an h-index of 42. My research at Duke-NUS has been supported by diverse
funding sources including the Ministry of Education, the National Medical Research Council, the National
Research Foundation, and the Defense Science and Technology Agency. I have been involved as a
researcher (PI, co-PI, co-I or collaborator) on 29 grants / contracts worth over $27 million SGD. As an
educator, I have given 170 lectures, seminars, tutorials, or workshops on sleep and/or neuroscience. I have
hosted 45 students as a thesis supervisor, including 4 medical students, 7 graduate students (1 Masters
and 6 PhD), and 34 undergraduates. I have also participated in numerous external teaching
programs/events to promote good sleep habits in children and adults.