Chien-Sing Lee: Glimpses | design thinking| computational thinking

CHIEN-SING LEE's

personal (unofficial) website

Chien-Sing, an IEEE Senior Member, comes from a pure Science background during her secondary school, then education for her first and second degrees and Information Technology for her PhD. She respects each discipline for its uniqueness and is awed by how each enriches and complements the other. What she is or will be, is totally by God's grace and wisdom.

Her Fulbright Fellowship at Lehigh University's Lehigh Valley STEM lab with Lehigh University's EEC Faculty and colleagues, and at Georgia Tech's Learning-by-Design lab with Prof. Janet Kolodner, and Prof. Ashok K. Goel's Design Intelligence Lab in 2008/2009 provided a richer, broader and deeper views towards computing, information systems, and Artificial Intelligence, enhancing her CogMoLab research in Multimedia University (MMU). This invaluable Fellowship, the support of her mentors far and wide and locally in Malaysia and her Multimedia University team, privileged her to be awarded the 2009 Ten Outstanding Young Malaysian (Science and Technology Development) by the Junior Chamber International (M).

Following from this is a 2-year (2011-2013) research venture as a Faculty at the Graduate Institute of Networked Learning Technologies, National Central University, Taiwan on the teaching of Mathematics to students in grades 1-3, with Prof. Tak-Wai Chan. Thanks also to NCU and ex-colleagues, as she is not familiar with the primary school environment. Self-explorations to exhibitions during her free time, opened her eyes to design competitions, e.g. RedDot. It triggered an innate curiosity, arising from the Georgia Aquarium, and Singapore Arts Science Centre.

The next 2-year (2013-2015) adventure in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) under the same leadership as when she was in MMU, provided invaluable insights into another side of design-based research - in games design, pre-school and graphic design. Together with Dr. K. Daniel Wong, she integrated lessons learnt from prior studies in MMU and Georgia Tech and mainly, Dym, Agogino, Eris, Frey, & Leifer's (2005) Engineering Design Thinking, Teaching, and Learning with UTAR's then Creative industries' syllabi. Lessons learnt on design, were enlightening.

She has since returned to computing and information systems at Sunway University, building mainly on computing fundamentals in the past and Dym et. al.'s propositions. Some of the grants which funded/supported some of the published papers were the Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, the Ministry of (Higher) Education, the past Fulbright Visiting Scholar grant, the Malaysian Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, Multimedia University grant, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman grant, Sunway University, and China's Natural Science Foundation. She is very privileged to have done her mentors and collaborators proud, by God's grace in the AD Scientific Index for Engineering and Technology, in the Computer Science sub field in Sunway University. This is possible, only by God's grace.

She still stands on the shoulders of giants. Special thanks to her mentors, both international and local when she was studying at Universiti Putra Malaysia (1987-1993), Universiti Malaya (1996-1999) and during her tenure in MMU (1997-2011) and UTAR (2013-2015). Special thanks to the following, in the past and/or present, for making her achievements possible, and for making possible, what is and what is to come, in these dynamically interconnected multi-modal times:
- Her siblings and especially parents, and grandma the late Mdm. Lion Long Neo
- Her Multimedia University-UTAR leaders of 14+2 years, Prof. Hean-Teik Chuah (Fulbright), Prof. Hong-Tat Ewe (MIT) with regards to IEEE Education tenets, universality, interdisciplinary (engineering education, computer science/computing, creative industries education), and Chinese culture and Buddhism. Prof. Hean-Teik Chuah was Vice-President (R & D) in her first 10 years with Multimedia University. The slogan in every letter from the R & D office was scholasticism through research. Prof. Hong-Tat Ewe was her Faculty Dean for similar number of years. Subsequently, in UTAR, they were President and Vice-President (Academic) respectively.
  - As we were pioneers of Multimedia University, there were no departments. Everyone worked hard to meet the expectations of the APEC advisory board, who helped set up the Multimedia Super Corridor in Cyberjaya, with Multimedia University, as the Stanford of the Multimedia Super Corridor. They lived out IEEE tenets when training us young ones, through problem-based and project-based learning, which integrated research, and assignments in teaching workload. It was very taxing, but rewarding. The foundations laid through these tough times, stood through time, as the foundations and essence of every venture. Their training through cognitive apprenticeship enabled her to understand object-oriented fundamentals and algorithms and transfer in practice across the Engineering and IT Faculties. Their Buddhist beliefs and her Christian (not Jewish) beliefs formed the epistemological grounding for her 20+ years of research. Malaysia is a Muslim country.
- Prof. Kinshuk, the journal Editor in Chief, who was kind to a young researcher in 1999, for her first journal paper.
- JICA (2007) for opportunities to visit outstanding universities and industries. Experiencing what the future would be like through VR headsets and seeing corn-based devices were eye opening. They redefined the role of museums, as not only the past, but also, the future.
- The Fulbright Commission, Prof. J. L. Kolodner, Prof. A. K. Goel, Prof. D. B. Glenn, on design-based research, Prof. Malachi Edwin Vethamani (Fulbright influence while she was studying in Universiti Putra Malaysia) and Prof. Abtar Kaur (Fulbright influence while she was studying in Universiti Malaya), US Fulbright Professors who came to Multimedia University
- ex-PhD supervisor Prof. Yashwant Prasad Singh for artificial intelligence foundations,
- Dr. K. Daniel Wong on design thinking, computational thinking, and interdisciplinary education
- Prof. Siu-Cheung Kong, Prof. Maggie Wang, Prof. Bo Jiang (CT-STEM-HCI)
- Prof. John H. Hughes on mild cognitive impairment /dementia research,
- Prof. David E. Drew (collaboration in past ICCE workshops and sustainable transportation perception studies)
- Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Malaya, Multimedia University, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman ex-colleagues, Sunway University and students, mentors and friends overseas and in Malaysia.
- She prays for peace, harmony and progress and is apolitical by God's grace.

MINDS