Outstanding Undergraduate Research Prize (2024) Winners

Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Prize (OURP) winners (from left): Hoh Quan En, Weng Yidou, Tan Wee Leng, Bryan Wang and Datla Prithvi Raj

Congratulations to our budding scientists, whose passion for research won them the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Prize (OURP) in Academic Year 2023 / 2024!

Chemistry’s Hoh Quan En, who also minors in Nanoscience, received the OURP for improving a commercially available conductive polymer – PEDT:PSSH – by modifying its electrical conductivity and morphology through varying ratios of starting materials – PSSNa and PSSH – added during synthesis. In spite of multiple setbacks in his quest to create higher-performance polymers, Quan En prevailed. His research opens the way towards performance improvements in novel p-doped conducting polymers for a commercial company.

Computational Biology’s Weng Yidou enjoys deciphering complex patterns to uncover trends and patterns. Through her work in statistical machine learning, where she focuses on probabilistic inference, Yidou developed a new graphical model that integrates expert insights to improve the model’s accuracy while keeping results comprehensible for experts, with potential applications in life sciences, healthcare and economics. She also presented her findings at the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2024)

Life Sciences’ Tan Wee Leng, who also minors in Psychology, received the OURP for her work on alternative therapeutic targets that could potentially reshape the treatment paradigm for intermediate type spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).  She was inspired to study this rare genetic disorder when she read about the debilitating symptoms experienced by young patients and the financial struggles faced by their parents due to the high cost of treatment. In her quest to understand the mitochondrial defects in the affected motor neurons contributing to SMA, she investigated the feasibility of neuroprotective nutrients in ameliorating these defects, as a more cost-effective complementary treatment.

Bryan Wang, who reads double majors in Mathematics and Computer Science, aims to discover and investigate new examples of relative Langlands duality. The Langlands programme is a far-reaching, influential framework of ideas in mathematics, which unifies various branches of mathematics such as number theory, representation theory, algebraic geometry and harmonic analysis. By utilising existing results in the theory of theta correspondence, Bryan’s work showed new examples of duality and interpreted existing results in the new framework of relative Langlands duality. In doing so, his work forges exciting new connections at the forefront of various branches of mathematics and theoretical physics.

Physics’ Datla Prithvi Raj received the OURP for his work in atomic and optical physics – the study of how atoms and light interact. His research set out to investigate the coexistence of thermalisation and memory in a quantum system, especially when objects do not behave in ways we usually see. His research findings could potentially be used to control information dynamics in quantum computers.