Optical Bioimaging Laboratory
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Group Leader
Prof. Colin J. R. Sheppard
(colin@nus.edu.sg)
Colin Sheppard (FIEE, FIOP) is Professor and Head of the Division of Bioengineering in National University of Singapore, and is also Professor in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology in the School of Medicine. He has received many prizes and awards, including the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award and the Institute of Physics Optics and Photonics Division Prize. He has served as Vice-President of the International Commission for Optics (ICO) and President of the International Society for Optics Within Life Sciences (OWLS). He is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics (the official journal of the European Optical Society). He has presented more than 90 invited conference papers, including 20 plenary or keynote talks. He has published 2 books, 4 edited books, 44 book chapters, and 300 refereed journal articles.
Professor Sheppard's main area of research is in confocal microscopy, including instrumental development and investigation of novel techniques with bio-medical and industrial applications. He was a pioneer in this area and developed one of the world's first confocal microscopes in 1975. He proposed nonlinear microscopy, including 2-photon fluorescence microscopy in 1978, and published the first images from scanning second-harmonic microscopy, also in 1978. His research interests also include diffraction and focusing, beam and pulse propagation, scattering, and image formation. He proposed the Bessel-Gauss beam (1978), and the linearly-polarized electromagnetic Bessel beam (1978). He has worked in the areas of electron beam instruments, vacuum and surface analysis, photoelectronic devices, optical fibres, optical information processing systems and optical communications.
Personal website: http://www.bioeng.nus.edu.sg/people/colin
Research Staff
Zheng Wei PhD, MSc, BSc
(biezw@nus.edu.sg)
Her current research work involves the development of the low-coherence interference microscopy, such as full-field optical coherence tomography, as well as fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy and imaging for biomedical applications.
Rehman Shakil PhD
(shakil@nus.edu.sg)
Rehman did his undergraduate studies at the Quad-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan and did some collaborative work at JILA, Boulder, Colorado, USA. He received his PhD degree from the Sydney University, Australia in 2004 and worked as a post doctoral fellow in the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan for a couple of years before joining Prof Colin Sheppard’s group in May, 2007. He is currently living in Singapore with his wife and two girls of age 8 and 4.
His research interests are in the fields of optical information processing, quantitative phase detection, digital holographic microscopy, confocal and two-photon fluorescence microscopy.
He has worked in wide areas of optics such as, optical holography, digital optical computing, real-time holography with nonlinear photorefractive crystals and fiber optical systems in information processing and neural network models and their optical implementations.
Elijah Yew Yan Seng BEng
(yewys@nus.edu.sg)
Elijah Yew graduated from the National University of Singapore with a B.Eng (2:1 Honours) in Mechanical Engineering. He joined the GPBE almost by accident by virtue of his Honours year project in Tissue Engineering. He is currently on the brink of referring to his PhD in the past tense rather than in the continuous. His interests are in the diffraction of light, nonlinear optics, polarization and, someday, quantum optics. He is currently involved in researching second-harmonic generation imaging and radial polarization.
He would very much rather dabble in philosophy and with the rise of mathematical logic in philosophy, he is biding his time. He is also aware his current photo makes him look like a disreputable property agent of the first order.
Graduate Students
James Kah Chen Yong BEng
(kah@nus.edu.sg)
James received his Bachelor of Engineering in National University of Singapore in 2003 with a major in Electrical Engineering (1st Class Honors) and Minor in Bioengineering and Management of IT. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Bioengineering under the Graduate Program in Bioengineering in NUS. His current research is on the development of cancer targeting metallic nanoparticles as optical molecular probes for reflectance-based imaging such as confocal reflectance microscopy and optical coherence tomography, working jointly under the Prof. Colin Sheppard’s bioimaging group in NUS and Assoc. Prof. Malini Olivo’s photodynamic therapy and optical imaging group in National Cancer Centre Singapore.
His current interest lies in nanomedicine and nanomaterials for biophotonics applications. Outside of work, James has a keen interest in biblical theology and engages himself in church ministry. He’s also an avid distance runner striving towards his first marathon soon.
Goh Szu Huat BEng
(gohszuhuat@nus.edu.sg)
Goh Szu Huat received the BEng degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National University of Singapore in 2004. Since then, he has been working towards his PhD degree from the same faculty.
His research project is titled - Resolution enhancement using Solid Immersion Lens Technology far field optical imaging: Application to imaging of semiconductor devices.
Wong Chee Howe BEng
(howe@nus.edu.sg)
Chee Howe obtained his Bachelors of Electrical Engineering from the National University of Singapore in 2004. Since then, he has been working towards his PhD degree under a NUS Research Scholarship under the supervision of Dr Chen Nanguang and Prof Colin James Richard Sheppard. His main thesis topic is on in-vivo optical system.
During his leisure Chee Howe spends his time reading and he is also an avid jogger.
Kou Shan Shan BEng
(s.kou@nus.edu.sg)
Shan graduated from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia with a BEng (1st class Honors) in Electrical and Telecommunications Engineering. She joined Optical BioImaging Lab in Jan 2006, and is working under Prof Sheppard on three-dimensional quantitative phase imaging and holographic microscopy for biological applications.
Besides twiddling optics, cells and computers, she enjoys all kinds of the games, both outdoor and indoor.
Tang Wai Teng BEng
(waitengtang@nus.edu.sg)
Wai Teng obtained BEng (1st Class Hons) in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Singapore in 2003. He is currently working towards his PhD degree under the supervision of Prof Colin Sheppard. His research focus is on the use of surface plasmons for bioimaging.
During his spare time, he likes to read and keep himself updated with developments in information technology.
Naveen Kumar Balla BTech
(naveenballa@nus.edu.sg)
Naveen graduated from IIT Madras with a BTech in Biotechnology in 2006 and then joined Prof Sheppard’s lab as a PhD student under the SMA-CSB program. Currently he is working on second harmonic generation from gold nanoparticles for deep tissue in vivo imaging.
Apart from academics, he indulges in hobbies like photography, sketching, hiking and cycling.
Shalin Mehta MTech
(shalin@nus.edu.sg)
Shalin's doctoral research is about development of high-resolution and label-free imaging methods for quantitative imaging of cellular morphology (i.e., imaging of phase information). He has keen interest in theory of image formation, microscope instrumentation, image reconstruction methods, and biological problems related to phase imaging.
He graduated with a Bachelor in Engineering in ECE (Electronics & Communication) and Master in Technology in ICT (Information & Communication Technology) from India. He worked with IIT, Bombay on low bit-rate speech coding for 6 months and with DRDO (Defense Research & Development Organization), India on radar signal processing for 18 months before joining the doctoral program at NUS Graduate School of Integrative Sciences & Engineering in August 2006 and Prof. Sheppard's lab.
In spare time he enjoys travelling, photography, puzzles, reading and (sometimes) writing. He has a blog and homepage at http://shalin.wordpress.com. His academic profile can be found at http://www.linkedin.com/in/shalinmehta.
Gong Wei MEng
(weigong@nus.edu.sg)
Gong Wei obtained her MEng and BEng in Electrical Engineering from Zhejiang University in 2006 and 2002, respectively. She is currently working towards her PhD degree under the supervision of Prof Colin Sheppard. Her research focus is in biophotonics.
During her spare time, she likes reading and hiking.
Si Ke BEng
(kesi@nus.edu.sg)
Si Ke obtained his BEng in Electrical Engineering from Zhejiang University in 2005, and received the Best Bachelor Thesis award. He is currently working towards his PhD degree under the supervision of Prof Colin Sheppard. His research focus is on high-resolution OCT and light propagation in biological tissue and cells. He has many interests, including reading, music and sports.
