Faculty Team
Adib Kusnan
Alecia Neo
Alistair Norris
Ang You Shan
Blanche Lim
Chng Yi Kai
Chris HL Lim
Damien Chong
Edmund Zhang
Ellvixson Yap
Evon Chua
Jason Ong
Jessica Wong
Justin Zhuang
Kavitha Krishna
Kevin Chiam
Low Cheaw Hwei
Mandi Lee
Matthew Wong
Sheere Ng
Stephanie Devina Widjaja
Tan Yeok Nguan
Wendy Chua
Wong Sweet Fun
Adib Kusnan
Alecia Neo
Alistair Norris
Ang You Shan
Blanche Lim
Chng Yi Kai
Chris HL Lim
Damien Chong
Edmund Zhang
Ellvixson Yap
Evon Chua
Jason Ong
Jessica Wong
Justin Zhuang
Kavitha Krishna
Kevin Chiam
Low Cheaw Hwei
Mandi Lee
Matthew Wong
Sheere Ng
Stephanie Devina Widjaja
Tan Yeok Nguan
Wendy Chua
Wong Sweet Fun
Adib is an actor, writer, director, educator, and NAC scholar with a MA in Arts Pedagogy and Practice from Goldsmiths, University of London. He is currently an Associate Artist with Checkpoint Theatre.
Since his professional debut in 2003, Adib has performed in numerous productions for the English and Malay-language stage. He is also a founding member of Singaporean playwright collective Main Tulis Group. He writes and directs extensively in both languages. His play 28.8 (2017) was nominated for Best Original Script at The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards 2018.
As co-lead artist for Both Sides, Now: Mengukir Harapan (2021–2022), Adib spearheaded engagement around end-of-life conversations within the Malay-Muslim community. He views theatre as a space to shape thought and life through socially engaged work. Recently, he worked on Air (2024), a verbatim theatre project amplifying Orang Seletar voices on displacement and identity. His most recent project is in September 2026, co-directing a play titled 3 Queens by The Necessary Stage. Adib also teaches forum theatre and facilitation as an adjunct lecturer at LASALLE.
Alecia Neo is an artist and cultural worker. Her practice unfolds primarily through photography, video installations and participatory workshops that address modes of radical hospitality and care. Conceived during the COVID-19 Pandemic, her long-term research, Care Index, seeks to understand care through dialogue, movement and collaborative practices.
She is the co-artistic director of Ubah Rumah Art Residency on Nikoi Island and the co-founder of Brack, an art collective and platform for socially engaged art. Active since 2014, her ongoing collaborations with disabled artists and communities manifest as an arts platform, Unseen Art Initiatives. Alecia has been an artist-in-residence at diverse art institutions such as New Taipei City Art Museum (Taiwan), Bamboo Curtain Studio (Taiwan), The Substation (Singapore), NTU CCA (Singapore) and UNIDEE in Biella, Italy.
She received the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award (2016) and the National Youth Award Singapore (2019). She is a member of the Green Art Lab Alliance (GALA) Asia and co-curator of the third edition of The Listening Biennial.
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You Shan is a Senior Product Experience Designer at Dyson’s New Product Innovation team. She holds a BEng in Engineering Product Development and an MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship, both from SUTD, and brings a background that blends product design, engineering, and entrepreneurship into her teaching.
At UAS, she guides students in bridging speculative thinking with hands-on making. Outside of Dyson and UAS, she occasionally takes on freelance design work across healthcare, XR interfaces and robotics.
Blanche is an ophthalmic surgeon who enjoys the creative work in her subspecialty interest of orbit, oculofacial and lacrimal surgery, whilst meandering into fields that span complex clinical care, medical education, community eye health, patient safety, and systems innovation. She enjoys the challenge of solving on ground problems in her leadership roles in clinical services, community eye care, optometry education, and regional oculoplastic surgery societies. Her work bridges highly specialised surgical practice with broader questions of healthcare access, service redesign, interprofessional education, and human-centred care — from developing optometry training pathways and community eye programmes to advancing research in lacrimal disease, orbital trauma, ocular surface health, and emerging environmental threats to vision. Within the faculty, she brings the perspective of a clinician-educator and healthcare systems practitioner, grounding design inquiry in the realities of patients, practitioners, institutions, and vulnerable communities. As an Adjunct Lecturer in Design for Social Futures at LASALLE College of the Arts, she mentors students to imagine more compassionate, resilient, and equitable futures for health and care.
Chng Yi Kai is a theatre artist who creates socially-conscious theatre works that extends our capacities as humans and communities. Invested in socially engaged arts practice, he has worked with participants across the lifespan - from children to seniors - through theatre and interdisciplinary arts processes.
Sustainable Medicine Design Lab
Dr Wong Sweet Fun is a well-known figure in the asset-based community development space often described as the Chief Mischief of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Yishun Health. She has dedicated her career to discovering more resonant ways to enhance health for Singapore’s seniors. Although she was not trained as a designer, she has harnessed a systemic outlook and design research methods, and led the way to the Communities of Care framework that reflects the national agenda for preventative health. In DSF, she spearheads the ToGather Thesis Lab as a research space for asset-based community development practice.
Damien Chong is a multi-script typeface designer, graphic designer and researcher from Singapore. He works primarily with arts and (multi-)cultural institutions, which informs his type and graphic design practice with historical and contextual cues.
He has been invited to speak at international and local events such as the Branding Identity and Typography Symposium (BITS), Typelab @ Typographics and TypeTalk @ Meta (Singapore). He was also awarded a special mention at the 13th Granshan Type Design Competition for the Spore font family—which supports Latin, Tamil and Arabic, and has been used at the Indian Heritage Centre in Singapore. He has also exhibited work at internationally and locally, at events such as Typostammich (Berlin), Common Characters (UK), Form_Flux_Futures (Singapore). He has worked with foundries such as Hanyi Fonts and Blaze Type, and has recently started an independent foundry called General Use Type (@generalusetype).
Damien takes cues from his practice which informs his teaching and (lifelong) learning. He takes a special interest in teaching typographic fundamentals, explorative graphic design, design theory and history, as well as helping students with academic research in a design context. He is part of the Irregular Form Type Collective (@irregular.form), which has collectively shared research and work at international events like ATypI (Association Typografique Internationale), Branding Identity and Typography Symposium (BITS), and Typography Theory Practice.
Edmund is a product and play designer from Singapore, currently based in Denmark. He explores how playful thinking can be applied to everyday life and societal challenges, using play to question existing systems and imagine more preferable futures.
He is currently pursuing an MA Design for Play at Kolding School of Design, where his interests have expanded beyond designing for play to exploring play as a human capacity, and how design might help people rediscover, nurture, and bring it into everyday life.
He is a DesignSingapore and Design for Play LEGO scholar, with his work recognised by the President’s Design Award and Wallpaper Next Generation Singapore Designer.
Ellvixson Yap is a digital product designer working across financial services, fintech and digital banking. His practice explores how human-centred design, systems thinking and technology can come together to create more intuitive and meaningful digital experiences. Drawing from his experience working with financial institutions and technology teams across the region, he brings a practical perspective on navigating complex systems, translating user needs into product experiences, and turning design ideas into solutions that can work in the real world. As an educator, he is interested in helping students develop their design thinking, prototyping and problem-solving skills while encouraging them to connect research, technology and people.
Evon moves between worlds: hospitals and void decks, institutions and residents, policy and lived experience. Over 15 years, she has worked at the edges of health, community development and design, not as separate disciplines but as one practice.
Her most recognised work, Wellness Kampung, grew from a simple conviction: that residents are producers of health, not recipients of it. What started as three void deck spaces in Yishun became a decade-long body of work, Caring Communities, that reached 10,000 participants across 38 community projects. Wellness Kampung was recognised as a finalist at the 2019 Seoul Design Award, and Caring Communities received the Don Norman Design Award Excellence award in 2025.
Now at Tengah General & Community Hospital, she is doing the most ambitious version of this work yet: building relationships and systems for a community that is still taking shape, in a hospital that has not yet opened.
In DSF, she co-leads the ToGather Thesis Lab, bringing what a decade on the ground actually teaches you: that real change happens in the spaces between disciplines.
Jason Ong is a designer and educator. With an interest in form, material and making, his three-dimensional creative practice spans product design, spatial design, public artwork, and crafts. He holds a Master in Design with Distinction from Domus Academy, Milan, and serves as a part-time lecturer at the National University of Singapore (Department of Design), Nanyang Technological University (School of Art, Design & Media), Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts / UAS (Faculty of Art & Design) and College of the Arts / UAS (Design for Social Futures).
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Justin is an observer of the designed world and its impact on everyday life. Since 2009, the journalism graduate has written and researched about architecture and design in Singapore. Together with his partner Sheere Ng, he runs In Plain Words, a Singapore-based writing studio that uses design and food as lenses to examine our world and everyday lives.
At DSF, he co-teaches the Think Tank modules to help students understand design as a language and how it relates to the economy, nation, environment and society.
Kevin Chiam is an industrial designer and educator based in Singapore. He is currently a Global Industrial Design Manager at Dyson, leading industrial design within a new product category, alongside teaching in the BA (Hons) Design for Social Futures at the University of the Arts Singapore.
His practice spans industrial design, innovation, experimentation and design futuring, with a particular interest in how physical artefacts can make emerging ideas and possible futures tangible. In DSF, Kevin teaches prototyping for speculative futures, helping students translate observations and signals into imagined worlds, artefacts and narratives that invite discussion and critical reflection.
Drawing from his experience leading the development of new products and categories in industry, Kevin encourages students to bridge ambitious thinking with rigorous making—using prototyping not simply to resolve ideas, but as a way to question, explore and imagine what might come next.
Cheaw Hwei, former Head of Philips Experience Design and Government & Public Affairs for ASEAN Pacific, played a pivotal role in integrating transdisciplinary design as a strategic innovation tool across consumer electronics, lifestyle, and healthcare. As Philips Global Head of Product, Service, and Spatial Design, he shaped the brand’s creative vision, driving innovation and enhancing product quality. His leadership led to iconic designs and the development of healthcare consulting services including the design of clinical experience. Renowned for his strategic and hands-on design expertise, Cheaw Hwei has led international teams to global acclaim, earning awards like RedDot Design Team of the Year and the Singapore President’s Design Award. He actively contributes to design boards and committees, including DesignSingapore Council and the Singapore Design Masterplan 2025. Honored with the Public Service Medal in 2017 for contributions to design development, he now consults independently through IDJU and IPI, focusing on healthcare experience design and design-led business innovation. He spends studio time with students of NAFA and LaSalle and is currently setting up a design think tank to further advance the field.
Mandi Lee is a researcher with the Asia Pacific HPV Coalition, the Karen Leung Foundation, and the International Gynecologic Cancer Society. She also serves on the Asia working group of the International Papillomavirus Society Awareness Campaign Committee. Locally, she leads research at the Alliance for Active Action Against HPV (A4HPV).
She advocates for women's health and works alongside organisations in the cervical cancer prevention space. Her recent work includes a regional stakeholder perspective study across LMICs in Asia, and research into how cervical screening programmes are integrated across the region. In Singapore, she co-created the first community-based cervical screening initiative, HPV Simple, to reach underscreened women in the community spaces where they live and gather. She also runs a private practice focused on programme implementation and outcome evaluation. She helps innovation and research teams quantify the impact of their work.
At LaSalle, she explores with students how to use different research methods to draw insights across disciplines to shape their design.
Sheere Ng writes and researches, using food as an entry point to examine complex issues. She is also one half of In Plain Words, an editorial studio and publisher of food and design books. At DSF, she co-teaches Think Tank, which suggests ways to think about meanings and relationships.
Stephanie Devina Widjaja is a design and product practitioner whose work spans industrial design, digital products, shared mobility, and energy systems. Her practice is shaped by an interest in how design can make products, services, and systems more understandable, usable, and connected to everyday life.
Beginning in industrial design and later moving into product management, Stephanie has worked across physical products, digital experiences, service touchpoints, and internal operational workflows. Her work brings together research, prototyping, user experience, stakeholder collaboration, and implementation, translating ideas into solutions that can be tested, adopted, and improved in real-world contexts.
In Design for Social Futures, Stephanie mentors students in the Future Materials Lab, supporting them to connect material experimentation with design research, everyday contexts, product applications, systems thinking, and clear communication. She encourages students to test with intention, reflect critically on their process, and develop design propositions that are thoughtful, grounded, and responsive to the world around them.
Yeok Nguan, also known as YN, is a rare soul that has married education, innovative design and the Social Services. YN provides expertise in human-centred and inclusive design for persons of all abilities. He has driven and offered consultation on inclusive design projects with partners such as National Heritage Board, National Youth Council, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Changi Airport Group and National Arts Council, focusing on co-creating inclusive practices with them. In his past lives with Design Singapore Council and National Council of Social Service, YN advocated the importance of human-centric and inclusive design, overseeing innovative projects that sought to uplift the experiences for persons with disabilities.
Interesting facts about YN: you will find him hiking or trekking in remote natural places, and possibly seeking opportunities to re-design something with an inclusive slant.
Program lead, BA (Hons) Design for Soial Futures
Wendy Chua is a design anthropologist, curator and educator. Her research mediates across disciplines to negotiate new forms of design and art-science practices in response to social issues and climate-related precarities. Through her practice Forest & Whale, Wendy envisages design as an agent of change, co-designing a pilot floor-based ward for a nursing home and new models of care to reimagine ageless societies. In speculative design, she swims in the intersecting fields of marine science, environmental humanities and design. Selected for the 2024 EU STARTS artist residency ReSilence, she collaborates with marine microbiologists to study harmful algal blooms, culminating in BLOOMS, a virtual reality installation exhibited in Berlin and Milan. As the program leader for BA (Hons) Design for Social Futures, she connects the dots and nudges for space in emerging fields for our socially engaged design students.
Co-lead, ToGather Design Lab
ToGather Thesis Lab
Dr Wong Sweet Fun is a well-known figure in the asset-based community development space, affectionately described as the Chief Mischief of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Yishun Health for her unconventional adaptive boundary spanning, especially in pushing the envelope on participation, contribution and mutual care by citizens within their communities. She has dedicated her career to discovering more resonant ways to enhance health and fitness of Singapore’s seniors. Although she was not trained as a designer, she has harnessed a systemic outlook and design research methods, and led the way to the Communities of Care framework that is reflected in the national agenda for preventative health. In DSF, she spearheads the ToGather Thesis Lab as a research space for asset-based community development practice.