Our Leaders

Professor Johan Eriksson is the Executive Director and Programme Director for Human Development at A*STAR IHDP, and Director of the Human Potential Translational Research Programme at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He is also the principal investigator of the Singaporean birth cohort studies GUSTO and S-PRESTO, as well as the iAdoRe study. A specialist in internal medicine and general practice, Professor Eriksson was last full professor at the faculty of medicine, University of Helsinki, and chief physician at Helsinki University Central Hospital in Finland. He holds clinical interests in diabetes and related metabolic diseases.

His research focuses on the early programming of health and disease, as well as on the prevention of type 2 diabetes and related metabolic outcomes by lifestyle interventions. He is in charge of the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study, a unique birth cohort study with a follow-up of over 20,000 individuals from birth until the age of over 80 years. Furthermore, he has been involved in the gestational diabetes prevention study RADIEL, in which a lifestyle intervention was shown to successfully reduce gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM); and the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study (DPS) – the first randomised study to show that lifestyle intervention is effective in the prevention of type 2 diabetes.

Professor Eriksson received his medical degree and specialist qualifications from the University of Helsinki.

Find out more about him here.

PUBLICATIONS

• Differential contributions of lean and fat mass on bone mineral density in Asian women of reproductive age: the Singapore Preconception Study of Long-Term Maternal and Child Outcomes study.
  JBMR Plus. 2025 Apr 9;9(6):ziaf054. doi: 10.1093/jbmrpl/ziaf054. 

• Exploring multi-omics and clinical characteristics linked to accelerated biological aging in Asian women of reproductive age: insights from the S-PRESTO study.
  Genome Med. 2024 Nov 8;16(1):128. doi: 10.1186/s13073-024-01403-7.

• Effect of an Asian-adapted Mediterranean diet and pentadecanoic acid on fatty liver disease: the TANGO randomized controlled trial.
  Am J Clin Nutr. 2024 Mar;119(3):788-799. doi: 10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.11.013. 

• Healthy ageing from birth to age 84 years in the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study, Finland: a longitudinal study.
  Lancet Healthy Longev. 2023 Sep;4(9):e499-e507. doi: 10.1016/S2666-7568(23)00135-6.

• Trajectories of growth among children who have coronary events as adults.
  N Engl J Med. 2005 Oct 27;353(17):1802-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa044160.

Sir Peter Gluckman is A*STAR IHDP’s Chief Scientific Officer and President of the International Science Council. He originally trained as a paediatrician with an interest in endocrinology, but very soon realised his calling in research – particularly in the fields of developmental endocrinology and neuroscience. Sir Peter previously served as Chief Science Advisor to the New Zealand Prime Minister.

With a strong interest in children’s growth and development and understanding how a baby's environment between conception and birth influences its childhood development and lifelong health, Sir Peter’s research has made significant contributions to the fields of perinatal physiology and biology, developmental neuroscience and neuroprotection, and paediatric and experimental endocrinology. His work has been instrumental in translating biomedical research discoveries into improvements in long-term health outcomes.

In addition to holding honorary chairs at the University of Southampton, University College London and the National University of Singapore, Sir Peter has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bergen in Norway, for extraordinary accomplishments regarding science advice and science diplomacy. He has also been recognised as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK) and a member of the National Academy of Medicine (USA). Among his notable accolades are New Zealand’s prestigious Rutherford Medal in 2001, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) award in Science Diplomacy in 2016, and his appointment as a Knight of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009 for his contributions to medicine. 

Sir Peter received the prestigious President's Science and Technology Medal in 2021 and in 2024, he was invited by the New Zealand government to chair two new advisory groups – the Science System Advisory Group (SSAG) and the University Advisory Group (UAG) – aimed at transforming New Zealand's science and university sectors. 

He received his MBChB from the University of Otago and his MMedSc from the University of Auckland.

Find out more about him here. 

PUBLICATIONS

• Characterisation of pregnancy-induced alterations in apolipoproteins and their associations with maternal metabolic risk factors and offspring birth outcomes: a preconception and longitudinal cohort study.
  EBioMedicine. 2025 Feb:112:105562. doi: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2025.105562. Epub 2025 Jan 21.

• Plasma lipidomic profiling reveals metabolic adaptations to pregnancy and signatures of cardiometabolic risk: a preconception and longitudinal cohort study.
  BMC Med. 2023 Feb 13;21(1):53. doi: 10.1186/s12916-023-02740-x.

• Population-based plasma lipidomics reveals developmental changes in metabolism and signatures of obesity risk: a mother-offspring cohort study.
  BMC Med. 2022 Jul 25;20(1):242. doi: 10.1186/s12916-022-02432-y.

• The longitudinal association between early-life screen viewing and abdominal adiposity-findings from a multiethnic birth cohort study.
  Int J Obes (Lond). 2021 Sep;45(9):1995-2005. doi: 10.1038/s41366-021-00864-9. Epub 2021 Jun 9.

• Neonatal amygdala microstructure mediates the relationship between gestational glycemia and offspring adiposity.
  BMJ Open Diabetes Res Care. 2021 Apr;9(1):e001396. doi: 10.1136/bmjdrc-2020-001396.

Professor Chong Yap Seng is the Chief Clinical Officer at A*STAR Institute for Human Development and Potential (A*STAR IHDP) and the Founding Director of the A*STAR-NUS Singapore Centre for Nutritional Sciences, Metabolic Disease, and Human Development. He also serves as Deputy Chief Executive (Education and Research) of the National University Health System (NUHS) and is the current Dean of the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.

A clinician-scientist with a special interest in the developmental origins of health and disease, Professor Chong is the Lead Principal Investigator of the Growing Up in Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) and the Singapore Preconception Study of long-Term maternal and child Outcomes (S-PRESTO) longitudinal studies, which examine how conditions before, during and after pregnancy, as well as early childhood influence the health and development of women and children. He has championed the translation of key insights from these studies into clinical practice and health policy, notably driving rapid, systemic changes to Singapore’s approach to gestational diabetes.  

For his contributions to early childhood development and beyond, Professor Chong received the National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award from Singapore’s Ministry of Health in 2017, as well as the Public Administration Medal (Sliver) at the 2022 Singapore National Day Awards.

Professor Chong received his MBBS, MMed (Obstetrics & Gynaecology) and MD from NUS, and till today, continues to care for mothers and babies as a Senior Consultant in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the National University Hospital (NUH).

Find out more about him here. 

PUBLICATIONS

• Ethical considerations in AI for child health and recommendations for child-centered medical AI.
  NPJ Digit Med. 2025 Mar 10;8(1):152. doi: 10.1038/s41746-025-01541-1.

• Life stage impact on the human skin ecosystem: lipids and the microbial community.
  NPJ Biofilms Microbiomes. 2025 Jan 13;11(1):13. doi: 10.1038/s41522-025-00652-7.

• A global multicohort study to map subcortical brain development and cognition in infancy and early childhood.
  Nat Neurosci. 2024 Jan;27(1):176-186. doi: 10.1038/s41593-023-01501-6. Epub 2023 Nov 23.

• Effect of an Asian-adapted Mediterranean diet and pentadecanoic acid on fatty liver disease: the TANGO randomized controlled trial.
  Am J Clin Nutr. 2024 Mar;119(3):788-799. doi: 10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.11.013.

• Gestational diabetes mellitus and development of intergenerational overall and subtypes of cardiovascular diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
  Cardiovasc Diabetol. 2024 Aug 28;23(1):320. doi: 10.1186/s12933-024-02416-7.

Dr Quek Boon-Kiat double-hats as both Deputy Executive Director at A*STAR IHDP and Department Director of the Social and Cognitive Computing (SCC) department at A*STAR’s Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC).

A pioneer of psychographic modelling and inference technology within the SCC department of IHPC, Dr Quek boasts extensive experience in software prototyping, research validation, and IP creation. He is well-versed in artificial intelligence (AI) – specifically autonomous robotic systems, with emphasis on computational modelling and simulation of social information processing mechanisms.

He joined IHPC in 2008 as one of two pioneering members of the Computational Social Cognition visiting investigatorship programme (VIP), led by Northwestern University’s Prof Andrew Ortony, a world-renowned researcher in computational social cognition and affective computing. The VIP eventually led to the formation of the SCC department in 2014. Since then, Dr Quek has been leading a multidisciplinary team of computer scientists and AI researchers, cognitive scientists, psychologists, and engineers, to translate the understanding of human psychology and cognition into real-world solutions.

His pioneering work on the development and use of network models of socio-cognitive constructs to perform psychographic inference and reasoning has gained industry attention especially in the HR, Consumer, Healthcare, and Fintech application domains, where productisation and commercialisation efforts with A*ccelerate are currently underway. Such efforts also include the deployment of some of his research work towards internal use, such as the trial deployment of a career self-discovery portal that could generate inferences about users’ innate psychological traits, vocational interests, and career inclinations.

Dr Quek was also a recipient of the prestigious A*STAR Graduate Scholarship in 2003, and the A*STAR Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2010. As a form of giving-back, he has been actively involved in A*STAR Graduate Academy (A*GA)’s scholarship outreach activities, including speaking to prospective scholarship applicants and science teachers from secondary schools and junior colleges, mentorship of junior A*GA scholars, serving on scholarship interview panels and judging various science competitions (A*STAR Talent Search, Singapore Science & Engineering Fair, A*STAR Research Attachment Symposium).

He obtained both his Bachelor of Engineering and PhD in Robotics and Autonomous Systems from the National University of Singapore.

Find out more about him here. 

PUBLICATIONS

• Explicit World Models for Reliable Human-Robot Collaboration.
  AAAI-26 Bridge Program B10: Making Embodied AI Reliable with Testing and Formal Verification. January 2026. doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.01705.

• Are Large Language Models Effective Knowledge Graph Constructors?
  Computation and Language (cs.CL). October 2025. doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2510.11297.

• To Embody or Not: The Effect Of Embodiment On User Perception Of LLM-based Conversational Agents.
  Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC). June 2025. doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.02514.

• Investigating individual differences in the association between financial literacy and financial behaviours.
  January 2025. doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5383672.

• What drives acceptance and propagation of online misinformation? An integrative re-examination of key enabling factors.
  SocArXiv. September 2024. doi.org.10.31235/osf.io/r8fhm.

Currently a practising senior consultant obstetrician at the National University Hospital (NUH), Singapore, Associate Professor Chan Shiao-Yng is also Deputy Chief Clinical Officer at A*STAR IHDP and a clinician-scientist at NUS. 

Before moving to Singapore in 2014, Associate Professor Chan was a consultant obstetrician in the UK with special interest in the management of pregnant women with medical disorders. After completing her PhD in 2004, she was subsequently awarded a prestigious five-year Health Foundation Clinician Scientist Fellowship and grant funding from the Medical Research Council (UK) and other research charities to establish a basic science research group at the University of Birmingham, UK. 

Her research work at NUS now focuses on endocrine and metabolic dysfunction in pregnancy and their impact on maternal and child outcomes as well as on placental development and function. She’s also extensively involved in world-class birth cohort studies like GUSTO and S-PRESTO, and is the Lead Principal Investigator in Singapore for the multinational NiPPeR (Nutritional Intervention Preconception and during Pregnancy to maintain healthy glucosE levels and offspRing health) trial.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Cambridge, received her PhD from the University of Birmingham, and is a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (UK).

PUBLICATIONS

• Residential proximity to transport facilities as urban determinants of individual-level per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) exposures: Analysis of two longitudinal cohorts in Singapore.
  Environ Health. 2026 Jan 9. doi: 10.1186/s12940-025-01257-5. Online ahead of print.

• Preconception to postpartum accelerometry-based 24-hour movement behaviors: a prospective cohort study.
  BMC Public Health. 2026 Jan 7. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-26034-4. Online ahead of print.

• An Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Pattern and Fecundability in a Multiethnic Asian Preconception Cohort.
  J Nutr. 2025 Dec 27:101283. doi: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2025.101283. Online ahead of print.

• Comparison of air displacement plethysmography, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, and bioimpedance in 6-week-old and 6-month-old infants.
  Pediatr Res. 2025 Dec 15. doi: 10.1038/s41390-025-04597-7. Online ahead of print.

• Impact of preconception and antenatal supplementation with myo-inositol, probiotics, and micronutrients on offspring BMI and weight gain over the first 2 years.
  BMC Med. 2024 Jan 30;22(1):39. doi: 10.1186/s12916-024-03246-w.

Jean Yeung is Director of Social Sciences under the Human Development domain at A*STAR IHDP and a Professor at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. She is also the inaugural President of the Population Association of Singapore, and the Founding Director of the Centre for Family and Population Research at NUS. She was previously a Provost-Chair Professor at the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Sociology Department. 

Yeung's research focuses on various aspects of family and population transitions in Asia including ageing, marriage, family values, and child development. She has led national studies on family and children’s well-being in the U.S., China, and Singapore, been on the editorial boards of several top-ranking international journals, and on numerous scientific review committees and advisory boards. She is the principal investigator for the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG-LEADS), which examines human development in Singapore by using innovative methods to understand factors that can promote Singaporean children’s early childhood development, and provide input that can help address these factors.

Her current research includes various family demographic issues in Asia and America. Her work appears in leading journals and is cited widely in academic publications and high-impact media such as BBC News and The Economist. Her recent publications include changing family values and behaviour, children's well-being, human capital, and ageing.

Yeung obtained her MA in Sociology from the Illinois State University, and her PhD in Sociology from the University of Alberta.

Find out more about her here.


PUBLICATIONS

• The affective dimensions of child-raising in cross-national families in Singapore.
  Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1–19. Published online: 31 Dec 2025. doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2594854.

• Pandemic-induced immobility and female marriage migrants in cross-national families in Singapore.
  Mobilities, 1–17. Received 01 May 2025, Accepted 21 Nov 2025, Published online: 13 Jan 2026. doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2025.2605057.

• Paternity leave-taking and early childhood development: A longitudinal analysis in Singapore.
  Journal of Marriage and Family, 1–24. First published: 24 March 2025. doi.org/10.1111/jomf.13100.

• Lower-income Marriage Migrants and Domains of Integration in Singapore.
  Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 66: 85-94. First published: 29 January 2025. doi.org/10.1111/apv.12439.

• COVID-19 experiences and family resilience: A latent class analysis. 
  Journal of Marriage and Family, 1–20. First published: 03 September 2024. doi.org/10.1111/jomf.13031.