I am a social service researcher, evaluator, and educator.

I serve as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Delaware (UD) and as a Research Fellow with The Majurity Trust (TMT), a philanthropic organisation in Singapore.

As a social service researcher, evaluator, and educator, I adopt and advocate for community-centred, interdisciplinary, and mixed-method approaches which bridge research and practice. My work focuses on the development of adolescents, youth, and young adults within underserved families and communities, specifically examining the structural factors and proximal processes perpetuating poverty and inequality. My primary research areas include:

(a) Family processes, specifically within households facing disadvantage and marginalisation;

(b) Youth civic and community engagement and political participation; as well as

(c) Evaluation research and implementation science, within the classroom as well as in social service and philanthropic settings.

My research projects have been supported by Singapore’s Ministry of Social and Family Development and National Youth Council. Read more about my ongoing research and projects. Complementing my academic research, I am also deeply committed to public scholarship. I founded and run socialservice.sg (active on Instagram and TikTok), a multimedia platform that translates social service research, practice, and policies in Singapore for a wider audience.

Teaching is an equally important priority of mine, and I was honoured with the 2025 UD Faculty Senate Excellence in Teaching Award. I am currently leading two UD-funded projects to enhance my programme development and evaluation course curriculum and pedagogy: one exploring the use of multimodal podcasts in the classroom, and another focused on authoring an open-access course textbook.

Born and raised in Singapore, I hold a Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA (under the National University of Singapore (NUS)-Overseas Graduate Scholarship) and a Master’s in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS (graduating as class valedictorian). Prior to joining UD, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work.