Festival Committee

Meet the academics shaping the 2026 Ideas Festival, co-organised by seven Singapore universities and supported by the SSRC.

Last updated 27 July 2026

The Ideas Festival is co-organised by seven partner universities in Singapore, namely the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore Management University (SMU), Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and University of the Arts Singapore (UAS).

The Festival is supported by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), which promotes and supports social science and humanities research in areas of strategic relevance to Singapore and the region.

2026 Festival Committee

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[SMU] Prof Kenneth Benoit

Ken is Dean and Professor of Computational Social Science at the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University. His research focuses on computational, quantitative methods for processing large amounts of textual data, mainly political texts and social media.

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[SMU] Assoc Prof Hannah H. Chang

Hannah is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University. She studies consumer behaviour and digital technologies, focusing on how consumers engage with products and services across digital platforms to inform marketing practice and policy.

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[SMU] Assoc Prof Q Forrest Zhang

Forrest is Associate Professor of Sociology and Lee Kong Chian Fellow at the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University. His research focuses on China’s agrarian political economy and rural development.

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[NTU] Prof Nick Powdthavee

Nick is Professor of Economics at Nanyang Technological University and a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society specializing in behavioral economics and happiness research.

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[NTU] Assoc Prof Xu Hong

Xu Hong is Associate Professor of Psychology at School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University. Her research studies neural mechanisms of visual perception and cognition and its application to human-computer interaction (HCI).

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[NUS] Assoc Prof Jack Meng-Tat Chia

Jack Meng-Tat Chia is Foo Hai Associate Professor in Buddhist Studies at the National University of Singapore, where he serves as Assistant Dean of Research in FASS. He is a historian of religion focusing on Buddhism and Chinese religions in Southeast Asia.

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[NUS] Assoc Prof Joelle Fong

Joelle H. Fong is Associate Professor at NUS. She holds a PhD in Applied Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Joelle’s research interests include pension economics, insurance markets, financial literacy and retirement, longevity risk management, and long-term care financing

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[NUS] Assoc Prof Selina Ho

Selina is Dean’s Chair Associate Professor in International Affairs and Vice-Dean (Research and Development) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS. She is a leading expert on how China wields power and influence via infrastructure and water resource capture in Asia.

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[SIT] Assoc Prof Ingrid Wilson

Ingrid is Associate Professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology. Her interests lie in gender issues, with a focus on women’s health and empowerment. Her research specialises in preventing family violence and elder abuse, and improving the quality of intimate relationships.

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[SUSS] Assoc Prof Jennifer Ang

Jennifer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at SUSS. She is the author of Justified Forgiveness: A Moral Case Against Silence, Neglect and Forgetfulness and Sartre and the Moral Limits of War and Terrorism. Her recent projects examine AI ethics, and relationships between technology, time and space

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[SUSS] Dr Nathanael Ong

Nathanael is the Provost’s Chair and Lecturer at the College of Interdisciplinary & Experiential Learning, SUSS. His expertise is in the field of sport and performance psychology and has published more than 15 journal articles in areas such as competitive anxiety, burnout, and smartphone addiction.

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[SUTD] Assoc Prof Alastair Gornall

Alastair is Associate Professor of History and Religion and Associate Head in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at SUTD. He gained his PhD in Asian Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2013. He has published many articles and a book, Rewriting Buddhism (UCL, 2020).

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[SUTD] Dr Cai Yanjun

Yanjun Cai is Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities. Her research focuses on climate resilience and urban sustainability in the face of digital transformation, paying additional attention to disadvantaged populations.

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[UAS] Dr Hoe Su Fern

Su Fern is Principal Research Fellow directing the Cultural Policy and Evidence Lab at NAFA, UAS. She specialises in the analysis of cultural policy with three strands (i) culture-led place transformation, (ii) cultural governance and policy-making, (iii) cultural value and impact evaluation.