Undergraduates get a taste of life in academia with NUS’ Research Experience (REx) programme

REx offers a grant, workshops on core research skills and curated topics such as artificial intelligence and data storytelling, as well as opportunities for students to showcase the impact of their work

With the grant she received under the REx programme, Life Sciences undergraduate Denise Ann McIntyre was able to attend the 6th World Conference on Marine Biodiversity held in Penang in July 2023, where she won the Best Presenter Award.

As she stood on stage to explain how fishing lines were impacting the corals in Singapore, Denise Ann McIntyre, then a Year 2 Life Sciences undergraduate, tried not to let her nervousness show. Seated in front of her were delegates at the 6th World Conference on Marine Biodiversity, who included aspiring student researchers, prominent scientists, policymakers, conservationists and industry representatives.

“It was nerve-wracking,” Denise, now a Year 4 undergraduate, recounts her experience at the conference held in Penang in July 2023. But she powered through and won the Best Presenter Award, a category open to undergraduate, Master’s, and PhD students.

Her conference paper discussed results from her research project focusing on how fishing lines—a form of plastic waste— affected corals and the organisms that depend on them. As a diver involved in conservation work before she enrolled in NUS, the 33-year-old was very keen to understand the impact of plastic on corals and coral-reef organisms.

“When I started the project, there were only three or four papers – and these were on one specific type of coral, (rather than) reef organisms broadly,” recalled Denise.  

Under the supervision of Dr Zeehan Jaafar, Senior Lecturer and Assistant Head of Department at the Department of Biological Sciences at NUS, Denise conducted surveys from July 2022 to May 2023. She recorded how 197 fishing lines over 10 survey sites affected 11 coral genera, a category of classification in biology, and came up with an impact scale – ranging from “least impactful”, such as when lines landed on the corals, to “most impactful”, indicating that the organisms died.

Her presentation garnered much interest from fellow conference attendees.

“I met people who were open to collaborating to continue the research in Malaysia, Indonesia, or Thailand,” Denise added.

Denise conducting fieldwork at an underwater survey site as part of a research project guided by Dr Zeehan Jaafar from the Department of Biological Sciences that examined the impact of fishing lines on coral reef organisms in Singapore.

A boost to research learning

Her experience was made possible by a grant from NUS’ Research Experience (REx) programme. Launched in 2023 to hone students’ research skills, REx is a course upgrade for students in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (UROP).

During the year-long REx programme, students assist a professor in their research as part of the UROP, and receive a grant – S$2,500 for individual projects, and S$5,000 for group ones.

The grant defrays research costs. Besides funding her conference trip, it allowed Denise to purchase better lighting equipment for underwater photography, which can be a struggle in Singapore waters notorious for their poor visibility.

More than 70 students have benefitted from the programme thus far, participating in research projects ranging from preventive healthcare and sustainability, to how bilingual people process sentences. Nearly S$200,000 in grants have been disbursed to the student researchers, according to the programme’s Year in Review 2024 report published in August.

Students on the programme, known as REx fellows, also attend five interfaculty workshops: two core modules on Ethics in Research and Research Methodologies, and three from a list that includes topics such as data storytelling, research tools using artificial intelligence, and career prospects in research. There are also optional REx-STEER (Study Trips for Engagement and EnRichment) excursions to other Asian countries, such as Vietnam, where the first trip was held in July 2023.

The programme concludes with a research showcase, where students present their findings via media such as documentaries, research papers, and posters.  

“Research is more than working in a lab or conducting interviews to collect data,” said Associate Professor Daniel Goh, NUS’ Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education. “We want undergraduates to not only assist professors in research projects, but also experience the complete research journey from conceptualisation and proposal to presenting and publishing their findings. Through REx, we hope to bring experiential learning to revitalise the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Programme.”

Wayne Sing, a Communications and New Media and NUS College undergraduate, had the rare opportunity to learn from researchers with a common purpose of exploring how technology can advance health communication at the 2024 International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) conference held in New Zealand.

Going beyond the classroom

Another REx fellow is Year 4 student Wayne Sing, 25. The Communications and New Media and NUS College undergraduate used the grant to attend the 2024 International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) conference in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he spoke at a panel and presented his research.

Under the supervision of Assistant Professor Dr Renwen Zhang from the Department of Communications and New Media at NUS, Wayne worked on an interdisciplinary project about how artificial intelligence (AI) can support social workers in their administrative and frontline work. The project is a collaboration with Assistant Professor Dr Yi-Chieh Lee from the School of Computing.

Wayne conducted focus group sessions and participatory design workshops with social workers and directors from two social service agencies in Singapore to understand their attitudes toward Generative AI in their work practices, alongside Yugin Tan, a graduate student from Computing who developed an AI chatbot for social workers.

He found that for AI to be effective, the bots would have to be an extension of the social workers – but ultimately should not replace them. “What struck me was that they were quite open to the idea of AI as a tool to enhance their work,” he said. The counsellors, he noted, had cited AI’s potential to speed up administrative tasks and gather insights from case notes, freeing up time for them to engage with their clients and focus on the emotional aspects of the job.

Being involved in the project underscored for him the iterative process of research – which evolves with knowledge gained from further inquiry – and the value of collaborating across disciplines to develop solutions to real-world issues. Through the REx workshops, he learnt about the career journey of an academic and how to optimise searches while conducting online research. 

Wayne presenting the research project he worked on under the guidance of Communications and New Media Assistant Professor Dr Renwen Zhang, which involved collaborating with social service agencies to understand their attitudes toward Generative AI and co-design AI solutions to support social workers in their administrative and frontline work.

Attending the conference and observing the community of researchers who both present and learn from each other was another eye-opening experience. “What they all wanted to do was collectively explore how technology can advance health communication…Learning more about this shared purpose that they have was quite inspiring,” he recalled. 

“(The conference) was a unique opportunity I would never have had without the project. I am grateful that at an undergraduate level, we can directly contribute to research,” Wayne added.

Having gained a taste of research life, Wayne is now considering pursuing graduate studies on AI in health communications. Meanwhile, Denise, who honed her data-handling and science-communication skills under the programme, plans to head to a coastal village in Bali to take part in conservation efforts.

Their perception of the value of research learning is a sentiment shared by many of their peers. More than 60 per cent see research as relevant to their career, according to a May 2024 survey of 927 students from the Faculty of Science, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the College of Design and Engineering, School of Computing, and NUS College.

The survey, which was conducted by the Office of the Provost and the Centre for Future-ready Graduates, also found that more than 60 per cent of students felt that research learning would help them decide which industry or job to pursue after graduation.

“Participating in research as a student provides real-world experience in the field, guided by an engaged and knowledgeable supervisor,” said Denise. “It also makes a strong addition to your resume, especially if you’re considering research as a future career path.”

Source: NUS News