Profile

With a background in mathematics and extensive experience in modelling across physics, transportation, and AI, I have pursued an educational journey across five countries and held professional roles in both academia and industry. Witnessing urban sprawl in China and the US, contrasted with sustainable development in Singapore and Switzerland, has shaped my vision for creating a sustainable future society through technological advancements.

Therefore, after graduating from the National University of Singapore with a first-class honours degree in physics and mathematics, I pursued an MPhil in sustainable engineering at the University of Cambridge. Recognising the profound impact of transportation on the economy, sustainability, and resilience of cities, I then completed a PhD at ETH Zurich, focusing my dissertation on the modeling of multimodal transport systems across different infrastructure levels.

To drive research impact in the real world, after obtaining my PhD, I co-founded Roll2Go, an ETH spin-off providing digital tools for shared micromobility. Under my leadership, the spin-off company has won prestigious competitions, awards, and grants from VentureKick, IMD, Innosuisse, European Institute of Innovation and Technology, and Horizon 2020, leading to its successful acquisition by Bond Mobility within two years.

I then joined Loughborough University in 2019. Returning to academia has allowed me to lead the development of fundamental AI research underpinning transformative tools for sustainable, resilient, and equitable mobility solutions that enhance the quality of life for all. Developing AI in the transport field intrigues me because it encapsulates the complexities of human behaviour and societal values, which are crucial for advancing towards AGI, while delivering immediate benefits for the public good. In 2023, my research excellence was recognised with a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

Understanding the complex, multifaceted challenges in transport that call for interdisciplinary collaboration to amplify the impact of our research, I have led the establishment of the Transport AI Innovation Centre at Loughborough University in 2024 as the inaugural director. With over 70 academic staff from all nine Schools at Loughborough University, we will together develop deep digital technologies that drive forward disruptive dimensions of future mobility: automation, electrification, connectivity, shared mobility, and active travel.

Awards

  • Manchester Prize top-10 finalist (2024)
  • UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (2023)
  • Best paper award, Journal of Urban Informatics (2023)
  • School mentoring award (2023)
  • Traffic4Cast competition finalist (2022)
  • Winner of Transport Innovation Challenge by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (2019)
  • Student Fellowship for International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (2017)

External activities

  • Deputy Director, European Association for Activity-Based Modelling (EAABM), 2024-
  • Chair, UK Task Force for Activity and Agent-based Modelling, 2024-
  • Chair, IEEE COINS conference Mobility Track, 2024

Key academic collaborators

  • MIT
  • ETH
  • University of Cambridge
  • Imperial College London
  • UCL
  • National University of Singapore