Workshops

A native of Nepal, Rajiv N. Rimal, PhD, is a Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a scholar in health communication, social norms, and behavior change. For more than 25 years, his research has examined how communication, social influence, and cultural context shape health behaviors and how theory can be translated into effective interventions. His work has spanned more than a dozen countries and addressed HIV prevention, maternal and child nutrition, anemia, vaccination, reproductive health, violence against women, and other major global health challenges.

Dr. Rimal is the author of the Theory of Normative Social Behavior, which explains how people's perceptions of what others do and approve of influence their own behavior. His research combines communication theory with epidemiology, behavioral science, and implementation research, with a strong emphasis on translating evidence into programs that can improve health.

He has led major international research initiatives in India, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Nepal, and other settings, working closely with local researchers, communities, governments, and implementing organizations. His scholarship has also increasingly examined how knowledge and theory move across cultures, challenging the traditional assumption that health communication theories developed in the West can simply be exported elsewhere. Through this work, he advocates for a more reciprocal global exchange in which insights from diverse settings contribute to and reshape the theories that guide health communication worldwide.

Asst/Prof Michelle is passionate about bringing the human story into healthcare. An interdisciplinary scholar at NTU’s School of Humanities, her research explores how illness memoirs, patient stories, and end-of-life narratives can transform the way we think about medicine and care. She has led projects on stroke rehabilitation, caregiving and narrative ethics in healthcare, funded by the Rehabilitation Research Institute of Singapore and Singapore’s Ministry of Education. Her work has been published in leading journals such as The Lancet and Journal of Medical Humanities, where she highlights the importance of listening to patient voices and understanding care through the lens of storytelling. By bridging the gap between the humanities and medicine, she advocates for a more relational, patient-centered approach to healthcare.

Asst/Prof David Mathew is a Consultant in the Department of Anaesthesia at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. He also serves as the Deputy Head of Clinical Practice & Patient Safety at the Lee Kong Chian School (LKC) of Medicine. In addition, he is also heavily involved in the working group for Medical Humanities at LKC Medicine. He serves as the Humanities lead for the Singapore Society of Anaesthesia. He has a keen interest in how the Humanities shapes the practice of medicine. With the advent of AI in our lives and medical practice, it becomes more important than ever to be clear about the role of AI as it merges into our decisions and treatment plans. He has published pieces of poetry in medical journals such as JAMA and Anesthesiology amongst others and continues to dabble in research and education whilst juggling his clinical practice.

Asst/Prof Chow Minyang is a clinical educator at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He has concomitant appointments as Consultant at the Ministry of Health, Professional Training and Assessment Standards Division and Assistant Professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. He leverages artificial intelligence, machine learning and learning analytics to enhance medical education and healthcare outcomes. He serves as the Associate Program Director of the Singapore Chief Residency Programme, Healthcare Leadership College at the Ministry of Health Holdings, where he focuses on developing future healthcare leaders. He works with TTSH Pre-Professional Education Office and NHG Residency on utilizing technology in education. He also serves as the Associate Program Director of NHG Internal Medicine Residency Programme.

Prof Premchand is an Associate Professor of Sociology and the Director of the MSc in Applied Gerontology programme at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He earned his PhD in Sociology from Arizona State University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. Before pursuing graduate studies in sociology, he obtained a B.Eng (First Class) in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Madras.

His research focuses on the social and demographic dynamics of Asia, with particular attention to how populations respond to societal, political, and economic change. Centred on South and Southeast Asia, his work examines marriage, divorce, families, households, and ageing. His publications have appeared in leading journals such as Population and Development Review, Demographic Research, Population, and Social Science & Medicine.

He is deeply engaged in teaching and mentoring undergraduate and postgraduate students, offering courses in population studies, social policy, quantitative methods, and gerontology. His commitment to teaching excellence has been recognised with the Koh Boon Hwee Scholars Award, a university-wide honour celebrating impactful and inspirational educators.

His academic service spans both institutional and international spheres. He has been elected twice to NTU’s University Senate, served on the Senate Steering Committee, and held the position of Vice President of the Asian Population Association. He also served nearly a decade as the sole Associate Editor of Asian Population Studies and has contributed extensively as a reviewer for more than 60 journals, publishers, and grant agencies, alongside organizing national and international conferences.

Professor Peter is an internationally recognized scholar in health communication. His research focuses on health literacy, doctor–patient interaction, risk and vaccination communication, health education, and the challenges of health misinformation. Over the course of his career, he has published more than 250 scientific works spanning medicine, public health, and communication studies. His work has made significant contributions to understanding how communication shapes health outcomes, particularly in the areas of telemedicine, mental health, and digital misinformation. He has also held distinguished visiting appointments in Europe, Asia, and the U.S., reflecting his global impact on the field.

Professor Luke is a leading linguist and was the Chair of the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University until 2024. His research focuses on conversation analysis and Chinese linguistics, examining how people use spoken language, prosody, and body movement in social interaction. He has extensive publications in Chinese grammar, intonation, and cross-cultural communication, and co-edited works such as Utterance Particles in Cantonese and Telephone Calls: Unity and Diversity in Conversation Across Cultures. Previously Head of Linguistics at the University of Hong Kong, he was awarded the President’s Chair in Linguistics at NTU in 2019 in recognition of his standing in the field of language and interaction.

Professor Nick is an expert in happiness and behavioural economics, with research focusing on mental health, well-being, fairness, and decision-making under luck and effort. He has held senior positions at Warwick Business School, the University of Melbourne, and the London School of Economics before joining NTU in 2022. Author of The Happiness Equation and co-author of The Origins of Happiness, his award-winning work has been published in leading economics and psychology journals worldwide.

Professor Eko earned his PhD in Economics from KU Leuven, Belgium, and previously taught at the University of Groningen and NUS before joining NTU in 2009. His research specializes in Experimental and Behavioural Economics, focusing on asset markets, financial decision-making, organ donation mechanisms, experiments on behavioural nudges, and cooperation in social networks. His work has appeared in top journals such as the Journal of Finance, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Economic Theory, and Management Science.

He utilizes controlled laboratory experiments to investigate how individuals make various economic decisions and how they are influenced by their preferences and beliefs, their environment (market and non-market institutions surrounding them), and their strategic interactions with other individuals. He teaches Behavioural Economics and Microeconomics courses at Nanyang Technological University.

Julia is a Professor of Health Communication at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She leads the Persuasive Communication program group and is founder of the Amsterdam Center for Health Communication (ACHC). Her research focuses on health communication, digital health, AI, and patient-provider interaction, with a special emphasis on vulnerable groups such as older adults and individuals with low health literacy. Prof Julia has published extensively, supervised numerous PhD candidates, and was elected Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA) for her outstanding contributions to the field.