Guest Speakers
Kishore Mahbubani is Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore. With the Singapore Foreign Service from 1971 to 2004, he had postings in Cambodia (where he served during the war in 1973-74), Malaysia, Washington DC and New York, where he served two stints as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN and as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002. He was Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Ministry from 1993 to 1998. Author of "Can Asians Think?", "Beyond the Age of Innocence", "The New Asian Hemisphere", and "The Great Convergence", Prof Mahbubani was selected as one of Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers in 2010 and 2011. In 2011, he was described as “the muse of the Asian century”.
Kenneth Paul Tan is Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) and Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, where he has taught since 2007. From 2000 to 2007, he taught at the NUS’s University Scholars Programme and Political Science Department. Since 2000, he has received more than 10 teaching awards, including in 2009 the Outstanding Educator Award, the most prestigious teaching honour bestowed by the University. In 2012, he was elected Chair of the NUS Teaching Academy. He has written widely on principles of public policy and administration (focusing on meritocracy, pragmatism, and public engagement); liberalization, democracy, and civil society; Asian creative cities and the culture industry; race, gender, and sexuality; spatial justice in Asian cities; nation branding, soft power, and nation building; and politics, society, and culture in Singapore.
Faculty Advisors
Professor M Ramesh has served as the Founding Head of the Department of Asian and Policy Studies and Chair Professor of Governance and Public Policy at the Hong Kong Institute of Education; Professor of Social Policy at the University of Hong Kon; and Chair of the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He has also held teaching positions at the University of New England and Victoria University of Wellington. Specialising in public policy and governance in Asia with a particular focus on social policy, Ramesh has authored and edited many books and published extensively in reputed international journals.
Mr Donald Low is Associate Dean (Research and Executive Education) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Besides leading the School’s executive education efforts, he also has administrative oversight of the School’s research centres and heads its case study unit. His research interests at the School include inequality and social spending, behavioural economics, economics and public policy, public finance, and governance and politics in Singapore. Prior to his current appointment, Donald served fifteen years in the Singapore government. During that time, he established the Centre for Public Economics at the Civil Service College of Singapore to advance economics literacy in the Singapore government.
Student Organisers
Dedy Permadi is a PhD student in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. His research interests include International Political Economy and Comparative Politics and reform. He obtained his BA and MA in international relations in Gadjah Mada University. Prior to joining the LKY School, he taught at the Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia.
Yvonne Guo is a PhD student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Having studied in France, Switzerland, China and Singapore, her research interests include foreign policy and financial sector policy. She obtained her Bachelor in Sciences Po Paris, and a Dual Master in international Affairs from Sciences Po Paris and the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Charles Phua is a PhD student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. His research interests include international relations and diplomacy, defense and strategic studies, strategy and innovation, the philosophy of Social Sciences, Singapore, China and Southeast Asian Studies. He obtained his BSc in international relations and MSc in international relations from the London School of Economics.
M. Kerem Coban is a PhD student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. His research interests include the political economy of development, financial liberalization, economic policy, and development aid. He obtained his BA in international relations from Kadir Has University, Turkey, and his MA in development studies from The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva (IHEID), Switzerland.
Sarah Bales is a PhD candidate at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on strengthening measures to achieve health equity in Vietnam. She obtained her B.A. in Economics and International Relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before joining the LKY School, she had worked for many years in the Ministry of Health and the Health Policy Unit of the Planning and Finance Department of the Ministry of Vietnam.
Ola Gamil El-Taliawi is a PhD student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Her research interests include gender, religion and politics, public policy and administration, development. She has a Bachelor of International business from the Sadat Academy for Management Sciences (SAMS) in collaboration with University of New Brunswick (UNB), and a M.A. in public policy from the American University in Cairo.
Xiaolin Duan is a PhD student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. His research interests include China-US relations, China’s Foreign Policies, Security and War Studies, and Foreign Policy Analysis. He has a Bachelor in Political Sciences from the China Youth University for Political Sciences and MA in international relations from the University of Macau.