Human Potential Day 2024

Event Details

Welcome to the Human Potential Day 2024 website!

We are excited to invite you to an engaging one-day symposium dedicated to fostering collaboration and the exchange of ideas between the local research community and policymakers to advance human potential.

Our stimulating agenda kicks off with a morning session featuring keynote addresses from three distinguished experts, each presenting cutting-edge insights into their research on learning and cognitive development.

In the afternoon, we will continue with two more keynote presentations focusing on early life research, followed by a dynamic ecosystem engagement session. This session will include an interactive panel discussion on how we can better mobilize research for tangible societal and health outcomes with scalable and sustainable impact. A poster presentation will also be featured, offering attendees the chance to explore research topics in greater depth and network with thought leaders and peers.

Join us for a day of knowledge sharing, impactful dialogue, and meaningful connections!

Agenda

November 12, 2024

Main Schedule

08:30 - 09:00

Registration and Coffee

09:00 - 09:15

Opening Remarks

Huck Hui Ng

09:15 - 11:30

Symposium: Learning & Cognitive Development

In this session, the speakers will present their research on prenatal and early childhood development, highlighting key findings that have driven significant advancements in learning and cognition.

Stanislas Dehaene

Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz

Victoria Leong

11:30 - 13:00

Lunch break

13:15 - 15:15

HP Engagement Session: Early Childhood Development

In this session, the speakers will share their groundbreaking research in the prenatal and early childhood development that has led to impactful outcomes in USA and UK. They will also share their perspectives on potential opportunities for human potential research in Singapore.

Charles Nelson

Neena Modi

15:30 - 16:15

Panel Discussion

The Panel Discussion, chaired by Prof Ng Huck Hui, will broadly focus on translational research in the human potential domain in Singapore. Panelists will provide perspectives on how Singapore might effectively mobilise research to achieve tangible societal and health outcomes, with a focus on leveraging data for scalable, sustainable impact.

John Challis

Charles Nelson

Neena Modi

Kenneth Poon

Huck Hui Ng

16:15 - 16:30

Tea Break

16:30 - 18:00

Poster Viewing/Presentation

Speakers

Stanislas Dehaene

Professor of Experimental Cognitive Psychology, Collége de France, France

Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz

Professor of Developmental Neuroimaging, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France

Victoria Leong

Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

John Challis

Professor of Physiology, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, and Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada

Charles Nelson

Professor of Paediatrics, Neuroscience and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, USA

Neena Modi

Professor of Neonatal Medicine Vice-Dean (International), Imperial College, UK

Kenneth Poon

Professor of Education (Psychology and Human Development), National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Huck Hui Ng

Assistant Chief Executive at Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore

Prof Stanislas Dehaene is a French cognitive neuroscientist. He serves as a Professor at the Collége de France in Paris, holding the Chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology, and is the Director of the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit.

Prof Dehaene’s research explores the brain mechanisms underlying cognitive functions such as reading, numerical processing, and consciousness. His contributions have provided key insights into how the brain acquires and processes symbolic information, with a particular emphasis on how education shapes the brain.

His research has earned him various international awards and recognition, including the Jean-Louis Signoret Prize (2001), Louis D. Prize (2003), and Brain Prize (2014).

Prof Dehaene is also an advocate for translating neuroscience research into educational practices and policies to enhance learning and teaching methods.

In 2018, he became the president of the newly created French Scientific Council for Education, which advises the French government on scientific approaches to learning and teaching. He is the author of multiple books including Reading in the Brain (2009) and How We Learn (2020), which were translated into more than fifteen languages.

Areas of interest: Cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying human learning, consciousness and numeracy; brain processes for language and math comprehension, consciousness and cognitive architecture

Prof Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz is a pediatrician and cognitive scientist known for her work on cognitive development, particularly in infants. She received her medical degree from the University of François Rabelais (Tours, France) and her doctorate in medicine with a specialization in pediatrics from the University of Angers (France). After a PhD in cognitive sciences, she obtained a full-time research position at CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France) in 1999. She has done pioneering work using brain imaging in infants and currently directs the developmental neuroimaging laboratory at Neurospin, INSERM, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay.

Areas of interest: Cognitive development in infants and children; Neural foundations of learning, language acquisition in early childhood

Prof Victoria Leong is Full Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Director of the Nanyang Technological University Early Mental Potential and Wellbeing Research (EMPOWER) Centre, and Deputy Director of the Cambridge-NTU Centre for Lifelong Individualised Learning (CLIC) which aims to develop neuropersonalised training programes for flexible learning across the lifespan. Her research examines the neural basis of social interaction between parents and offspring, across human and rodent species, and in both healthy and disease models. She is a pioneer in the use of dyadic-EEG and in the development of dyadic sociometric predictive models for infant cognition and developing executive function. Her work has received recognition through the FABBS Early Career Impact Award and the Nanyang Research Award.

Areas of interest: Neuro-social processes that support learning, Language acquisition during infancy, Developmental language difficulties

Prof John Challis is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, and Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University and at Murdoch University, WA. He is Principal of LHC Life Health Consulting.

Previously, Prof Challis served as Director of Strategic Partnerships at the BC Centre for Disease Control Foundation in Vancouver BC and Principal of LHC (Life Health Consulting); President and CEO of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research; Vice President Research and Associate Provost of the University of Toronto; founding Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Human Development Child and Youth Health; Chair of the Department of Physiology, University of Toronto; founding Scientific Director and Vice President Research of the Lawson Research Institute, St Joseph's Health Centre, University of Western Ontario. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the Institute of Biology and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ad eundem). He has served as President of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation, the Perinatal Research Society, and the Canadian Physiological Society amongst others.

Prof Challis has published more than 500 peer review papers and chapters in his research areas of pregnancy, preterm birth and developmental aspects of health and disease (H-index: 82, citations: >26,000), trained more than 100 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and held in excess of $25 million peer reviewed research funding. He was appointed Officer in the Order of Canada in 2020.

Areas of interest: Developmental Trajectories/fetus, pregnancy, development, DOHaD; Health research networks, organisations and funding processes

Prof Charles A. Nelson III, is currently professor of paediatrics and neuroscience and professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and professor of education in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds the Richard David Scott Chair in Pediatric Developmental Medicine Research at Boston Children’s Hospital, and serves as director of research in the Division of Developmental Medicine.

Prof Nelson chaired the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development and served on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panels that wrote From Neurons to Neighborhoods, and New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research.

Among his many honors, Prof Nelson has received the Leon Eisenberg award from Harvard Medical School, an honorary Doctorate from Bucharest University (Romania), was a resident fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio (Italy) Center, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the British Academy and along with Professors Fox and Zeanah has received the Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. In 2021 he received the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize.

Areas of interest: Developmental cognitive neuroscience in children, including the development of social perception; developmental trajectories to autism; and the effects of early adversity on brain and behavioral development.

Prof Neena Modi is Professor of Neonatal Medicine and Vice-Dean (International) in the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London and Consultant in Neonatal Medicine at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust.

Prof Modi is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Council member 2020-23. She heads the multidisciplinary Neonatal Medicine Research Group, and the National Neonatal Research Database, a UK Information Asset, at the Neonatal Data Analysis Unit, at Imperial. She is the lead for the "Pregnancy and Prematurity" theme of the Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.

Prof Modi has a national and international profile as a medical leader and clinical scientist. She is a past-president of the British Medical Association. UK Medical Women's Federation, and UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Her contributions have included national reports on children’s biomedical research and child health in the UK, and campaigning in relation to UK health services, environmental issues and child refugees. She led the establishment of a Child Health Research Collaboration and Children's Research Fellowship Fund.

Areas of interest: Paediatrics and Reproductive Medicine; Clinical Sciences; Public Health and Health Sciences; Cognitive Science

Prof Kenneth Poon is Lien Foundation Chair Professor of Education at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. He is also Dean, Education Research, as well as Centre Director of the Centre for Research in Child Development. Trained as a clinical psychologist and as an early interventionist, he has over 25 years of experience working with children and persons with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Prof Poon is leading/has led, as principal investigator, research projects with a combined quantum of over SGD$15 million. His research has focused on the development of children (especially children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and children from low income families) examining how the home and school environments impact development. He is Lead Principal Investigator of the ongoing Drivers, Enablers and Pathways of Adolescent Development in Singapore (DREAMS), a longitudinal study of more than 7,000 adolescents. He also led the completed Transition and Adjustment of Children with Special Educational Needs (Tran-SEN), a longitudinal study of more than 700 primary/special school students.

As Singapore is a context which until recently, has not conducted much research with assessment tools, he has developed, adapted, and normed instruments which may be used for future studies such as the Singapore Ability Scales (SAS), Singapore's first commercially available test of intellectual abilities. Finally, a growing area of research is in the examination of how the outcomes of students with neurodevelopmental disabilities can be optimised in inclusive school environments.

Areas of interests: Developmental Psychopathology, Early Intervention, Assessment of Children and Youth with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Prof Ng Huck Hui is the Assistant Chief Executive for Research and Talent Development, and Chief Scientific Advisor of the A*STAR Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (A*STAR IMCB), under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research.

Prof Ng is renowned in the field of gene regulation and genomics. His laboratory is developing diagnostic and therapeutics modalities for brain and liver diseases. Prof Ng had held several administrative positions. He was the Executive Director of the Genome Institute of Singapore and the Executive Director of the A*STAR Graduate Academy.

Prior to joining A*STAR, Prof Ng was a postdoctoral fellow with Harvard Medical School under the prestigious Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Postdoctoral Fellowship. Prof Ng is renowned in the field of stem cells, having spent more than a decade in research to understand and uncover the intricacies of gene regulation and how they relate to cell biology. He was also the President for the Stem Cell Society Singapore, which is a major platform for educating the public on stem cell research. In 2016, Prof Ng was elected to be an Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, making him the only associate member to be based in Singapore.