by Naomi Kutash
Just after the New Year, I had the opportunity to attend the Global Young Scientists Summit (GYSS) in Singapore, organised by the National Research Foundation (NRF). It was a five-day conference packed with lectures from 21 laureates and networkingopportunities with researchers from across the world.
Entrance of the summit venue at the National University of Singapore (NUS)
Conversations with Laureates
Among the many (many!) highlights, I will remember having dinner with Prof Donna Strickland for a long time. Prof Strickland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2019 for her work on chirped pulse amplification. I must admit I still don't quite understand it, even after her dumbing it down for us. Despite feeling nervous to converse with a Nobel Laureate, she was so easy to talk to and patiently answered all the questions we had.
She was a wonderful storyteller, recounting what happened the day she received the news and what her life has been like since, as well as her account of being one of only three women in her engineering cohort.
Dinner with Prof Donna Strickland and fellow participants
I also had the opportunity to talk to Prof Jayant Baliga, the 2024 Millennium Technology Prize recipient. As an electrical engineering student, I was thrilled to hear from the inventor of the IGBT! I am currently learning about transistors in my second-year coursework, which is putting a lot of his lecture into practice.
In his lecture, he talked about a guiding “invisible hand of fate” that led him down the path of electrical engineering, as well as the risks he took when presenting his research to the CEO of General Electric, which ultimately allowed him to commercialise his product. He also gave a lot of advice to the young researchers, called “Baliga adages” (many of the laureates had quite a good sense of humour).
At that point, I had made it my mission to snap as many pictures as I could with the laureates (when will I ever be in the same room with this many of them at once!)
A photo with Prof Jayant Baliga
Conversations with Fellow Participants
Of course, I spent most of my time getting to know the other participants, including PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from around the world. After five days together in an informal setting, I've made some lasting friendships. I learned about the day-to-day realities, the highs and lows, and the motivations behind pursuing a career in academia.
It was immediately clear that everyone shared a collective, long-term goal of improving the world, setting aside differences of nationality, religion, and background. In the current political climate, it is heartening to feel that the world is in good hands, which brings me to the panel discussions.
Breakfast with fellow participants
Panel Discussions
Each day included an open panel discussion with a group of laureates. These sessions were among the most insightful for me, touching on topics I had some prior knowledge of. There were several recurring themes, highlighting some of the significant emerging work in research.
Breaking Barriers, Leading Change: Challenges in STEM
In this panel, the laureates shared personal stories about career sacrifices, the isolation that can come with research, and the importance of work-life balance. They discussed navigating exclusion and bias in scientific communities, and the value of learning to say "no"- something I particularly resonated with. While progress has been made, pursuing a research career remains a distinct challenge, particularly for women. Dr Patricia Lee also spoke about her transition from academia into industry, which opened new opportunities for her and which she argued deserves to be embraced as a legitimate and valuable career pathway. Needless to say, men completely outnumbered women in the laureates, so it was inspiring to hear these women actively advocating for youth and female empowerment in research.
Geopolitics to Genomics: Concurring Minds in a Multipolar World
Here, the laureates encouraged young researchers to pursue global collaboration despite rising geopolitical tensions. Even within academia, the importance of cross-cultural partnership for driving innovation is well understood. Prof Brian Schmidt, who serves on research advisory bodies in both Singapore and Australia, spoke about the difficulties of directing funding to the right research. This led to Prof Randy Schekman to point out the failures in science communication and public education. This was illustrated, for example, by the spread of misinformation during COVID-19, highlighting the lack of public trust in science. Scientific journals are facing a credibility crisis driven by funding competition, the pressure to publish, overhyping of results and a lack of reproducibility. Prof Kae Nemoto emphasised that scientists must engage with society and policymaking- they need to be at the table where decisions are made.
On a related note, Sir Richard Roberts delivered a lecture titled “Food is Medicine for the 800 million people who go to bed hungry every night,” focusing on his philanthropic work on promoting the use of GMOs, such as golden rice, to address the global food crisis. In European countries, food choice is a luxury, and they have the capacity to grow agriculture through GMO technology. Yet misinformation, distrust in science, and political obstacles are leaving millions hungry in developing countries. Although separate from the panel, this lecture coincidentally drove home the importance of transparent communication by scientists. Religious leaders, public figures, and the media also share responsibility for presenting scientific facts accurately.
Brains & Bytes: Levelling Up Research in the Age of GenAI
I entered this discussion with some scepticism. While I do use AI tools myself, I share the concern that they are taking critical thinking from young people, not to mention the environmental cost.
A key point raised was that although AI enables faster data analysis, it cannot truly create, meaning human creativity remains essential for discoveries and innovation. Generative AI also presents challenges around reproducibility and research integrity. That said, Prof David Baker's lecture, "Design of New Protein Functions Using Deep Learning," focused on his Nobel Prize-winning work on using deep learning to design new proteins capable of targeting cancer or neutralising viruses. Whether for good or for worse, machine learning is already revolutionising research.
Supercomputing and Quantum: Redefining the Future
With experts on both topics represented, this panel made for a lively (at times heated) debate. I came in knowing relatively little about either field, and quantum computing remains an emerging area with high public interest. Despite scepticism from some of the other laureates, Prof Kae Nemoto and Dr Patricia Lee made a compelling case for its potential.
Prof Torsten Hoefler, whose work earned the 2024 ACM Prize in Computing, presented a lecture titled "From Large Language Models to Reasoning Language Models." He argued that we have moved beyond the Data Age and into the Age of Computation, declaring that "computation is the new oil." I don't yet have a firm position on this, but it has certainly landed on my radar.
The theatre where the lectures and panel discussions were held
Exploring Singapore: Site Tours
Even the site tours reinforced just how deeply Singapore has invested in education, research, and innovation. First, we visited the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)'s National Semiconductor Translation and Innovation Centre (NSTIC), where we were given an inside look at how teams move from research through to wafer-level prototyping using breakthrough photonics technologies, with an emphasis on reaching the market quickly.
That afternoon, we visited the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), exploring their work in aerial robotics and their Future Communications R&D Programme. Members of the university's leadership team then spoke about their institutional goals and Singapore's broader national commitment to innovation, including updated school curricula designed to foster creative thinking from a young age, and increased funding for the start-up ecosystem.
Visit to A*STAR’s National Semiconductor Translation and Innovation Centre
Before attending the summit, I could imagine myself as a researcher, and I went into the summit seeking new experiences, but also clarity. The things I learned this week were incredibly interesting and inspiring, but they have certainly made me more aware of what a career in academia entails (and further increased my respect for researchers). However, perhaps it is even less clear what I want to pursue. It is still early days in my degree (I like to think), so I imagine my thoughts will change…
Though I had little to contribute to the conversations as an undergraduate, I came away having made friends with some incredibly intelligent people, whom I'm grateful to for their kindness in patiently explaining their research to me. I have certainly learnt a lot from a diverse range of fields, and am so excited for the future of science, with the rapid progress of research and innovation by talented scientists. Technology is a critical asset for a country in the 21st century, and Singapore has grabbed innovation by the reins and has run with it.
