Division Director, Advanced Manufacturing and Semiconductor

A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing (A*STAR IHPC)

Since taking on her current role less than a year ago, Freda has led the transformation of a key research division, demonstrating how applied research can better serve national priorities. She reorganised fragmented efforts into two cohesive, impact-driven digital platforms, one focused on virtual manufacturing and testing, the other on next-generation microelectronics design. 

Through her efforts to steer AI-powered, multi-physics modelling frameworks, she has contributed to strengthening IHPC’s ability to deliver research with both scientific and industrial relevance in Advanced Manufacturing and Semiconductor.

Freda builds trust in times of uncertainty through consistent communication, weekly team engagements, and mentorship. This has fostered a culture of shared purpose and psychological safety, where young researchers feel seen and supported, and senior scientists remain engaged and valued.

Her impact extends beyond her division. In her previous role, Freda was instrumental in orchestrating the national proposal within A*STAR for NSTIC (R&D Fab), a national-level facility designed to drive advanced semiconductor research and innovation. This involved a collaborative effort that balance diplomacy, technical expertise, and strategic coordination.

At heart, Freda connects ideas, people, and opportunities. Whether translating complex research into real-world solutions or helping colleagues grow in their careers, she leads with empathy, clarity, and purpose.

Head of Systems Engineering

Centre for Advanced Technologies in Online Safety (CATOS)

Therese heads the Systems Engineering Pillar of the Centre for Advanced Technologies in Online Safety (CATOS), which hosts Singapore’s Onlin­­­­e Trust and Safety programme that is aimed at developing and translating innovative technologies for high-impact use cases. She leads the development and applications of key technologies that are being deployed for real-world innovations to enhance Singapore’s online safety.

With the growing prevalence of misleading information online, strengthening the trustability of credible sources is highly challenging. To address the innovation barriers, Therese established a collaborative connection with international industry leader Adobe and spearheaded the first-in-Singapore implementation of a web-based digital signing system for bridging the gap between content provenance technologies and the media ops users need. For strengthening policy enforcement and research, she leads the development of an integrative social monitoring platform, which is a large-scale system that integrates data and AI engines to present useful insights for communications and policy ground sensing research. Therese functions as a strong and highly effective technical coordinator who has introduced six novel technologies to over 30 organisations towards innovative use cases.

Therese and her engineering team’s work has led to important progress, contributing to the scene of Singapore-led technology and innovation outcomes. Her technical leadership, as well as her ability to drive research outputs to innovative solutions, make her an exceptional candidate for the 2025 100 Singapore Women in Tech.

Research Scientist

A*STAR Centre for Frontier AI Research (A*STAR CFAR)

Hangwei is an outstanding researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with significant contributions to Trusted AI and AI for Science (AI4Science). She has advanced the development of robust, transparent, and reliable AI systems for high-stakes applications such as cybersecurity, robotics, and scientific discovery.

Her work in AI4Science has led to innovative generative AI frameworks for material discovery, enabling faster, data-driven identification of novel materials for clean energy and sustainable manufacturing. These efforts are already showing practical impact and hold promise for accelerating scientific breakthroughs.

Backed by national grants, such as the A*STAR Career Development Fund and the DTC Research Grant, and as a key contributor to the AI for Materials Discovery Grand Challenge, her research sits at the intersection of national tech strategy and scientific innovation. Collaborations with Nvidia and others further underscore the tangible value of her work.

Beyond research, she actively mentors junior researchers and students, fostering a strong talent pipeline and encouraging more women to enter STEM fields.

Next on her plate is agentic AI research. Her vision is to push the edge of AI’s potential, while staying grounded in verifiability, transparency, and safety.

Early Career Investigator

A*STAR Centre for Frontier AI Research (A*STAR CFAR)

Haiyan is a leading expert in reinforcement learning, large language models, lifelong learning, and agentic AI systems. She leads pioneering research on how intelligent agents can reason, adapt and act autonomously across complex, high-stakes environments such as robotics, cybersecurity, and sustainable infrastructure. Her work focuses on agentic foundation models and trust-verifiable AI systems that operate reliably with minimal supervision, aligning closely with national priorities around responsible AI and digital trust.

She has served as Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator for several nationally funded initiatives under A*STAR’s Digital Trust Centre and Career Development Fund. Her recent research on MermaidFlow, a novel framework for generating safe, verifiable workflows in multi-agent AI systems, demonstrates her ability to translate cutting-edge science into deployable, production-ready solutions for industry and government. 

In addition to her scientific leadership, Haiyan plays a vital role in shaping the next generation of AI talent. She has mentored over 15 students and early-career researchers and actively contributes to the global AI community as a reviewer and organiser for top-tier conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, and IEEE CAI. Her efforts have helped position Singapore at the forefront of responsible AGI research and multi-agent AI system deployment. Her work pushes the boundaries of AI while fostering a more inclusive, trustworthy, and human-aligned future.