“If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call?!” Or, more aptly, if you want to protect your neighbourhood from, what would you definitely need? I think that any solution must include a well-tested alarm system to call attention, a sizeable group of expert firemen, and a whole lot of water. I suppose […] … learn more→

Unknown to most people yesterday, hydroxychloroquine (trade name Plaquenil) is today at the heart of a medical, scientific and ethical issue. Due to the progression of the pandemic, these debates which started in France are now experiencing various developments abroad, notably in the USA where President Donald Trump and Professor Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and […] … learn more→

During last year, I found myself drawn to attend several workshops run by the research education and development team at my university. They had topics such as blogging and developing a digital profile. My interests sprang from a desire to get my research and writing on girl internees in Changi during World War II – […] … learn more→

The impact on teaching of the forced closure of university campuses around the world has understandably dominated institutional and press attention, with lecturers scrambling to learn new technologies and pedagogies so that disruption is minimised. But the implications of the coronavirus-related shutdown on research is also huge. Limited or no access to labs and research […] … learn more→

I’ve always enjoyed memes but I never thought I’d come to depend on them to recalibrate my moods. I’m a person who loves working from home, using communication technologies, and social media. I also tend towards introversion. You would think that shifting to the current context would be easy and even desirable, with so many […] … learn more→

A lot of research doesn’t go to plan. Researchers encounter a few hiccups along the way and in order to avoid problems, they make adjustments to their process. The research goes ahead, just slightly differently. But what usually goes wrong in research? The most common problems in the kind of research that I do are […] … learn more→

I am not easily shocked, but I’ll admit I was shocked to hear that a number of academics had recently questioned why I had been awarded a top scientific prize in 2012. According to some, I’m told, my success was simply because I ticked the ethnic diversity box. I had no idea that this kind […] … learn more→

When your first degree was in Asian Studies and your first overseas trip was as an undergraduate exchange student to Japan, in some ways it shouldn’t be surprising that you end up in a teaching / research position in a university in Tokyo. But when people here learn that the lecturer in Japanese politics and […] … learn more→

My starting point – Research is a creative process. The connection between research and creativity is embodied in some disciplines. C. Wright Mills for instance famously talked about the necessity of the ‘sociological imagination’ – understanding how larger unseen social relations are embedded in and frame everyday events, conversations, processes and relations. But perhaps the […] … learn more→

I have a wardrobe full of food-print dresses, hundreds of pairs of food shaped earrings, a collection of food-themed hair accessories, and even a handbag shaped like a lemon wedge. If you follow me on social media, you will see a new combination of foods multiple times a week. But I’m not a fashion account […] … learn more→