NSS INAUGURAL SCIENTIFIC MEETING

Dr Ho Kok Yuen obtained his MBBS, Master of Medicine (Anaesthesiology) and a Graduate Diploma in Palliative Medicine (GDPM) from the National University of Singapore. He also holds a Graduate Diploma in Sports Medicine (GDSM) from the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University.

He was Fellowship-trained in Pain Management at Duke University Hospital in USA and is a Fellow in Interventional Pain Practice (FIPP) with the World Institute of Pain. He has been awarded the European Diploma in Pain Medicine (EDPM) offered by the European Federation EFIC and the European Society of Regional Anaesthesia (ESRA-DPM) separately. He currently serves as an international Examiner for the FIPP and ESRA-DPM examinations.

Dr Ho Kok Yuen is a key opinion leader in pain management and anaesthesia and sits on numerous advisory boards. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, clinical practice, consensus guidelines as well as book chapters on pain and anaesthesia. He has delivered more than 200 lectures at regional and international conferences. Dr Ho frequently serves as an instructor at interventional pain cadaver workshops, and he has trained hundreds of doctors in Southeast Asia, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and the Middle East.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

• Chairman, Chapter of Pain Medicine Physicians, Academy of Medicine, Singapore (AMS)
• Vice-President, College of Anaesthesiologists, AMS
• Chairman, South-East Asian Section, World Institute of Pain (WIP)
• President, Neuromodulation Society of Singapore (NSS)
• Past President, The Pain Association of Singapore (2011-2017)
• Past Vice-President, Association for South-East Asian Pain Societies (ASEAPS) (2012-2013)

Phern-Chern Tor completed his medical degree at the National University of Singapore under the Singapore Armed Forces Local Study Award. In his military career he served as Head Psychological Care (PCC) services in the SAF and was responsible for the provision of psychiatric care for all enlistees and regular staff in the Singapore Armed Forces. During his tenure as Hd PCC he revamped the psychiatric services to provide consultant lead care, focused the services on outpatient assessments and established the Case Tracking Unit (CTU)

In his psychiatric career, Phern-Chern distinguished himself by obtaining the Eli-Lily gold medal and the Singapore Psychiatric Association Book Prize for his undergraduate and postgraduate psychiatric examinations respectively. He has been active in education and research, publishing more than 90 peer reviewed articles and is an adjunct Associate Professor in psychiatry for the Yong Loo Ling School of Medicine as well as a National Examiner in Psychiatry. He underwent advanced research and neurostimulation training at the Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales and Toronto Western Hospital. He won the SMA Ethics Essay Competition as a medical student.

He established the first Neurostimulation services at the Institute of Mental Health (Singapore) and was the inaugural Service Head and is now the inaugural Director of the Centre for Interventional Psychiatry at the National University Hospital of Singapore. He is also the immediate past Chairperson of the Section of Neurostimulation, College of Psychiatrists (Singapore), Treasurer of the International Society of ECT and Neurostimulation and Vice-President of the Singapore Neuromodulation Society, a Chapter of the International Neuromodulation Society.

Dr Rosa So is currently a principal scientist under the Healthcare and Medtech Division at Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), A*STAR, as well as the programme director for AI for Science (AI4S) programme funded by NRF. She also holds an Adjunct Assistant Professor position in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the National University of Singapore. Dr So’s main research interest lies in neurotechnology and digital health applications. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University and received her Doctor of Philosophy from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. She is the recipient of the National Awards (Covid-19) Commendation medal and 2023 100 Women in Technology Award.

FFPMANZCA FIPP FFPMRCA FRCA MBBS BSc(Hons) PgCert (Pain Management) DipCBH DipCH

Dr Zhihao Oon graduated from Queen Mary, University of London in 2007 as a medical doctor. After completing foundation training in specialties including Emergency Medicine and Paediatrics, he commenced specialist training in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine in London, UK in 2009 and was admitted to the UK GMC Specialist Register in 2018.

He completed a fellowship in Interventional Pain Management and Neuromodulation at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust — one of the UK’s specialised centres offering spinal cord stimulation and was appointed as an Honorary Consultant in Pain Medicine in 2020.

From 2021 to 2025, Dr Oon worked as a Consultant in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine at the National University Hospital, Singapore. During this time, he introduced new initiatives to the Pain Department, including intrathecal analgesia for cancer pain and spinal cord stimulation for patients with refractory neuropathic pain. He also authored the department’s current protocol for lidocaine infusions in chronic pain management and served as a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the National University of Singapore. He was also one of the principal investigators for a multi-national pharmaceutical research trial.

In 2025, he completed a further fellowship in Pain Medicine at Flinders Medical Centre, South Australia, and was awarded Fellowship of the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (FFPMANZCA).

Dr Oon has also worked with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Yemen, Syria and Gaza. In 2019, he established the first MSF Pain Medicine clinic in Gaza, Palestine, providing specialist pain management for patients with complex trauma, including high-velocity gunshot wounds and other conflict-related injuries.

He has presented at conferences and delivered workshops in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine across Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore..                           

He is currently a Senior Medical Practitioner in Anaesthesia at Flinders Medical Centre, South Australia, and a Pain Medicine Specialist at PainMedSA.

Justin has built his career in leading global medical device companies, including Medtronic, Zimmer, and Integer, where he focused on commercial and business development across areas such as physical rehabilitation, neuromodulation, and orthopaedics. In these roles, he was responsible for driving market adoption, building strategic partnerships, and supporting the successful commercialisation of medical technologies.

He currently leads Programme and Partnerships at MedTech Catapult, a national initiative hosted by A*STAR that supports medical device companies in accelerating productisation and commercialisation. Working closely with innovators, clinicians, research institutes, and industry partners, he helps translate promising technologies into clinically relevant, manufacturable, and investment-ready products.

Justin is motivated by the opportunity to bridge innovation and real-world impact, with a focus on enabling technologies that improve patient outcomes and strengthen Singapore’s position as a MedTech innovation and manufacturing hub.

Designations:

• Senior Consultant, Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, National University Hospital
• Senior Consultant, Division of Neurosurgery, Department of General Surgery, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital
• Senior Consultant, Division of Surgical Oncology, National University Cancer Institute, Singapore
• Senior Consultant, Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, Alexandra Hospital
• Senior Consultant, National University Spine Institute, National University Health System

Qualifications:
MBBS, FRACS(Neurosurgery), FAMS

Specialties/Sub-specialties:
Neurosurgery

Clinical Disciplines/Programmes:
Surgery, Surgical Oncology, Surgical Oncology (Neurosurgery)

Kai Keng Ang is a Senior Principal Scientist I at the Institute of Advanced Intelligence and Computing (IAIC), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technology University (NTU), Singapore. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computational Intelligence from NTU. He is listed in the World's Top 2% Scientists published by Stanford University. His research interests include brain-computer interface, artificial intelligence, machine learning, pattern recognition and neural signal processing.

Dr Nicholas Chua is currently the Medical Director and Senior Consultant of Specialist Pain International Clinic, Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital in Singapore.

Dr Nicholas Chua graduated from the National University of Singapore and earned his Master of Medicine (Anaesthesiology) before completing his advanced specialist training at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, where he also led the Acute Pain Service.

He holds the Fellowship of Interventional Pain Practice (FIPP) from the World Institute of Pain (USA), and a PhD from Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, with research focused on chronic neck pain and cervicogenic headaches. He is also trained in Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) for pain diagnostics in Bochum, Germany and is a certified Diplomate of the American Academy of Pain Management.

Dr Nicholas Chua is the immediate-past President of the Pain Association of Singapore and serves on various national and international boards. He was previously the Director of Education (Asia) for the World Institute of Pain and sat on their global examination board for 8 years. His academic contributions include roles as associate editor and reviewer for journals such as The Lancet, Neurosurgery, and Pain Practice, among others.

His clinical areas of interests includes chronic headaches and facial pain, chronic neck pain and cervicogenic headaches and neuromodulation.

Professor Cuntai Guan is a President’s Chair in Artificial Intelligence and the Deputy Dean of the College of Computing and Data Science at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He also serves as the Director of the Center for Brain-Computing Research. His research interests span brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), machine learning, artificial intelligence, and their applications in rehabilitation and mental health. Professor Guan is known for his seminal contributions to EEG-based BCI research, BCI-driven rehabilitation, and the development of cutting-edge deep learning BCI architectures. In recognition of his contributions to BCI research, he has received numerous prestigious awards, including the International Annual BCI Research Award (First Prize), the King Salman Award for Disability Research, the Nanyang Research Award, and the IES Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award. Professor Guan is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore, Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (USA), Fellow of IEEE, and Fellow of AIMBE.

Dr Cyrus Ho is an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also a Senior Consultant psychiatrist at the National University Hospital, managing psychiatric conditions across the age continuum from adolescence to old age. He is interested in interfacing between medicine and psychiatry, complex mood disorders, neuropsychiatry and public mental health.

He studied medicine at NUS and subsequently obtained a Master of Science in Research from NUS, a Master of Science in Applied Neuroscience from King's College London and a doctorate from NUS. He also underwent neuropsychiatry training at the Montreal Neurological Hospital in Canada and the Royal Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Unit in Australia under the Ministry of Health (MOH) Health Manpower Development Plan award. He was conferred as a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK), Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh,  the American Psychiatric Association and the Singapore Academy of Medicine for his contribution to Psychiatry.

Dr Ho has published widely, authoring more than 390 academic papers in international peer-reviewed journals and 6 books. Clarivate Analytics (Web of Science) recognised him as one of the most Highly Cited Researchers for his contributions to cross-field research from 2021 to 2023 and Neuroscience and Behavioural research in 2024.

Dr. Ru(by) Kong is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Sleep and Cognition, National University of Singapore. She completed her Ph.D. at NUS under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Yeo. Her research lies at the intersection of machine learning and neuroimaging, where she develops computational approaches to map individual differences in brain organization from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and link these differences to human behavior and cognition. More recently, she has been advancing methods for personalized brain stimulation, bridging computational neuroscience with translational applications. She serves on the editorial board of _Imaging Neuroscience_ and has contributed as a committee member of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM).

Dr. Yuxin Liu is a Presidential Young Professor of Biomedical Engineering and a Principal Investigator at the Institute for Health Innovation & Technology (iHealthTech) and the N.1 Institute for Health at the National University of Singapore. He obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Stanford University. Dr. Liu was awarded BME Rising Star (ICBME), Wellcome Leap Performer, and was selected as one of the "Innovators Under 35" (Asia Pacific) by MIT Technology Review. His research interests include tissue-mimicking brain-machine interfaces and wearable electronics.

Dr Shaun Loh is a Senior Consultant Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon at The ENT, Voice & Snoring Clinic, Gleneagles Hospital, Singapore. He has a subspecialty interest in snoring and obstructive sleep apnoea, with expertise across the full spectrum of OSA care, including conservative treatment, CPAP optimisation, sleep surgery and upper airway stimulation.

Prior to private practice, Dr Loh was Consultant and Chief of Sleep Surgery at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Singapore General Hospital, and was also a Consultant at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Sleep Centre. He is the pioneer of hypoglossal nerve stimulation surgery in Singapore and Southeast Asia, and is the appointed consulting surgeon for Inspire Medical Systems in the region, where he trains ENT surgeons in upper airway stimulation.

Dr Ng Zhi Min is a Senior Consultant and Programme Director of the Paediatric Integrated Neurorehabilitation Service (PINS) at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Her special interest is in Neurorehabilitation for children with long-term neurological condition and acquired brain injury. She is the Principal Investigator for the Cerebral Palsy Registry in Singapore. Her current research interest includes the application of innovative technologies such as non-invasive neuromodulation to optimise recovery and functional outcomes. 

Current Appointment Details

Senior Consultant, KK Women's and Children's Hospital
Specialty: Paediatric Neurology
Sub-specialty: Neurorehabilitation

Clinical Assistant Professor, Singhealth, DUKE-NUS, Paediatric Academic Clinical Program and Neuroscience Academic Clinical Program
Clinical Assistant Professor, NUS Yong Loo Lin, School of Medicine
Adjunct Assistant Professor, LKC School of Medicin

Dr Ng Zhi-Yan Valerie
MBBS (United Kingdom), MRCP (London)
Consultant, Rehabilitation Medicine
Director, Home Ventilation and Respiratory Support Service
Tan Tock Seng Hospital

Dr Valerie Ng graduated from King’s College London and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 2016. She is currently a Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine, as well as the Director of Home Ventilation and Respiratory Support Service (HVRSS) at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH). She has a sub-specialty interest in spinal cord injury and chronic mechanical ventilation. She was awarded a team HMDP fellowship to help set up Singapore’s first Ventilatory Rehabilitation Unit at TTSH Rehabilitation Centre in September 2023.

She assisted to set up the community rehabilitation Air Master Programme in collaboration with Lien Foundation in 2023. She was awarded the Ng Teng Fong – Healthcare Innovation Programme Grant in 2022 as well as the National Medical Research Council New Investigators Grant in 2024 to further her research interests in Epidural spinal cord stimulation for Spinal cord injured patients. She is also currently the co-Principal Investigator for the RESTORES trial, in collaboration with NNI Neurosurgery.

Through her work, she hopes to give spinal cord injured patients and chronically ventilated patients more visibility and a life defined by quality not just by quantity.

Dr Ong Say Yang is a senior consultant anaesthesiologist and pain physician. He underwent a one-year fellowship in chronic pain management at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Royal Adelaide Hospital in Adelaide, Australia in 2018. His clinical interests are in regional anaesthesia and chronic pain management, particularly in neuromodulation such as spinal cord stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation. He currently heads the Pain Management Unit at the National University Hospital, as well as the Pain Service at Alexandra Hospital.

He is actively promotes pain education of healthcare professionals as the President of the Pain Association Singapore and the Vice President of the Association of Southeast Pain Societies. 

Suresh Ramaswamy, MPhil, BPT is a rehabilitation leader, clinician-scientist, researcher, and international speaker with over 25 years of experience in neurorehabilitation, spinal cord injury, stroke recovery, and rehabilitation technology. He has pioneered the clinical application of transcutaneous spinal stimulation in spinal cord injury rehabilitation and actively collaborates with international clinicians and researchers to advance neuromodulation and restorative rehabilitation practices. His work spans robotics-assisted rehabilitation, translational research, and innovation in neurological recovery, with publications in leading rehabilitation journals. Currently, he leads rehabilitation services at one of Singapore's premier private healthcare institutions, driving clinical excellence, research, and service innovation across inpatient, outpatient, and home-based rehabilitation programmes.

Dr Tan Yee-Leng is a Senior Consultant with the Department of Neurology and the Head of Ambulatory Services at the National Neuroscience Institute. After obtaining her specialist accreditation in neurology from the Ministry of Health (Singapore), she pursued training in epilepsy and completed a 2-year fellowship at the Montreal Neurological Institute (Canada) and University of California, San Francisco.

Her clinical and research work focuses on the diagnosis and management of patients with epilepsy, including those who remain with refractory seizures. She is actively involved in both local and international project collaborations, which aim to develop advanced neurophysiology and imaging techniques, as well as prediction tools for the optimisation of clinical care.

Dr Tay Yi Hang is currently a consultant psychiatrist with the Department of Psychological Medicine at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, and the head of the department’s repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation service (rTMS), which focuses on the delivery of rTMS to patients with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. She started the KTPH rTMS service in 2022, and has since led her rTMS team to win several awards including the NHG Quality Day Merit Award and KTPH ONE Improvement Silver Award in 2025, in recognition for quality improvements in rTMS service delivery in the past years. Her subspecialty and research interests are in neurostimulation, mood and trauma-related disorders, and schizophrenia.