Reimagining Longevity through Optimal Experiences - Speaker biographies

The late Professor Theng Yin Leng

Former Symposium Chair

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Professor Theng Yin Leng. As Chair of this conference, her vision inspired its creation and guided its development from the very beginning. An internationally renowned scholar, Professor Theng's pioneering research in human-computer interaction, information studies, and technology for ageing transformed these fields and reflected her belief that research should create meaningful societal impact. As Founding Director of the Ageing Research Institute for Society and Education (ARISE) and the Centre for Healthy and Sustainable Cities (CHESS), she built enduring institutions that bridged academia, policy, and industry to improve lives.

Her colleagues at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Singapore, and King's College London are profoundly grateful for her leadership, inspiration, and unwavering commitment to research excellence. We honour her memory by continuing the work, fostering the collaborations, and building on the legacy she leaves behind.

Associate Professor Younbo Jung

Symposium Chair and co-director of the GAME Lab

Dr. Younbo Jung is an Associate Professor and co-director of the GAME Lab at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in Telecommunications from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. His research examines the social and psychological implications of human communication, focusing on generative AI, serious games, virtual reality, human–computer interaction, and computer-mediated communication. An award-winning educator, Dr. Jung has received five teaching awards at NTU, including the Nanyang Excellence in Teaching Award (2010) and the Graduate Mentorship Award (2024). He has served as an inaugural Fellow of the Teaching Excellence Academy since 2014. His work integrates emerging educational technologies with communication science through interdisciplinary research and engaged pedagogy.

Professor Lorainne Tudor Car

Professor Lorainne Tudor Car, MD PhD MSc (LSE), is Professor of Digital Health and Inkfish Principal Medical Research Scientist within the EMBRACE research programme at King’s College London. She is a physician-methodologist with expertise in the design, evaluation, and implementation of digital health interventions. Her work draws on behaviour change science, user-centred design, mixed-methods research, and robust evaluation frameworks. Her current research focuses on large language models, personal AI health assistants, wearable devices, and broader digital health innovation, with an emphasis on prevention, early intervention, and the management of chronic diseases.

Professor Tudor Car has published over 140 peer-reviewed papers, including in Nature Medicine, npj Digital Medicine, and The Lancet Healthy Longevity, and her work has informed national and international policy, including WHO guidance. She serves on the editorial boards of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine and JMIR Medical Education, and has held academic and research roles across Asia, Europe, the US, and the UK, including at Imperial College London, LKCMedicine, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also deeply committed to education and mentorship, with extensive experience supporting researchers, clinicians, and multidisciplinary teams across career stages.

Professor Claire Steves

Claire is a Professor of Ageing and Health, Head of Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology and Clinical Director of TwinsUK, King’s College London. She is also a Consultant Geriatrician at Guys and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust, where she specialises in cognitive impairment and dementia assessment and management, particularly in the context of multiple medical problems.

Research-wise Claire is interested in how each one of us ages differently and uses population studies like TwinsUK to understand what underlies this variability. She works across health boundaries, interested in both physical and mental health and the intersections between them, including significant contributions to understanding of how COVID-19 and the pandemic affected older people. She established that environmental factors are particularly important in understanding trajectories of ageing. This has led to focused work on the relationship between the microbiome and conditions of ageing, including cognitive ageing, frailty and multi-morbidity. Her research department studies ageing and health using biological and clinical collections, data linkage with health, educational and environmental records collaborating with ageing biologists and social and environmental scientists. She is Director of King’s Centre for Ageing Resilience in a Changing Environment (CARICE), a unique and novel initiative which aims to reduce the negative collective impact of the major global challenges of climate change and population ageing.

Claire has published more than 150 research articles in high impact journals and appears regularly in the media.

Professor Mariam Molokhia

Professor Mariam Molokhia is a clinical epidemiologist and GP with expertise in primary care and health inequalities research, complex traits (CVD, diabetes, metabolic health, and CKD), multimorbidity, and pharmacoepidemiology. Her current interests are in developing and evaluating translational medicine strategies for risk prediction, with tailored strategies for stratified medicine including digital health interventions.

Her work draws on routine health records (CPRD, THIN, Lambeth DataNet, OneLondon), extensive work in prescribing, adverse drug reactions and pharmacogenomics. She leads multidisciplinary research programmes on underserved and ethnically diverse communities, spanning observational studies, intervention development, and implementation science. Her studies include innovative community-based models of care. Funding includes NIHR, NHS England, MRC, Kidney Research UK, the European Commission and industry partners.

Professor Andy Ho

Moderator: Community Health Session

Andy Ho is Provost’s Chair Professor of Psychology, Professor of Psychology and Medicine, and Associate Chair (Faculty) at the School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. An award-winning psychologist, social scientist and educator, his work focuses on thanatology, ageing, psychotherapy, digital health and community empowerment. His research advances innovative psychosocial interventions for mental health, resilience, palliative care and healthy ageing, and he has developed 15 psycho-socio-spiritual interventions. He is also President of the International End of Life Doula Association (INELDA) and has authored over 200 publications and delivered more than 300 keynote and plenary lectures worldwide.

Professor Paola Dazzan

Paola Dazzan is Professor of Neurobiology of Psychosis, Theme Co-Lead for Psychosis and Mood Disorders at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre. Her main area of interest is the study of neurobiological risk factors for psychosis in the early illness stages, and in elucidating the relationship between brain, social and biological risk factors for psychosis across the life span, from pregnancy, through adolescence to adulthood.

Professor May O. Lwin

Professor May Lwin is Vice Provost (Faculty Affairs), President’s Chair Professor of Communication Studies, Centre Director of the Asian Centre for Health Behavioural Insights and Interventions, and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy and Sustainable Cities (CHESS), Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information (WKWSCI), as well as Joint Professor, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCM) at Nanyang Technological University.

A leading scholar in health communication and behavioural science, Prof May’s research focuses on understanding how communication, digital technologies and behavioural insights can improve health outcomes across populations. Her work examines digitally mediated health behaviours, AI and communication in medicine, healthy and sustainable food behaviours, infectious diseases, and children’s and family health, with a growing focus on the behavioural foundations of healthy ageing and longevity.

She has authored more than 180 peer-reviewed publications in leading international journals and was named among the world’s top 2% of scientists in 2025. Her research bridges communication science and public health; translating behavioural insights into scalable interventions that empower individuals and communities to adopt healthier behaviours and live healthier, longer lives.