{"id":5804,"date":"2018-04-01T03:56:16","date_gmt":"2018-04-01T03:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-alumn-nus.pantheonsite.io\/alumnus\/?p=5804"},"modified":"2025-08-21T16:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T08:09:14","slug":"chain-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/2018\/04\/01\/chain-reaction\/","title":{"rendered":"Chain Reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO TAKE UP A PhD IN COMPUTER SCIENCE AT NUS?<\/strong><\/p>

Right before my graduation from the University of Engineering and Technology at the Vietnam National University (with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science), I was looking for positions in academia from a reputable university in Asia. I had visited NUS previously as part of an exchange programme, and had always wanted to come back and spend more time here.<\/p>

I went through the websites of faculty members in the School of Computing and sent emails to a few professors, including Assistant Professor Prateek Saxena, whose research interests aligned with mine. Asst Prof Saxena replied immediately and showed interest in my profile. We had a few follow-up interviews after that. He was really helpful and patient, and addressed every question that I had back then.<\/p>

Three months later, I was working as a research assistant with Asst Prof Saxena. I enjoyed the research environment and work so much that after a year, I decided to sign up for the PhD programme.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
In 2016, Dr Luu was awarded the Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship, which supported him during a stint at a top international research institute.<\/span><\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

HOW HAS THE COURSE BENEFITED YOUR WORK?<\/strong><\/p>

Through the PhD programme, I built up my fundamental knowledge base and learnt how to tackle problems with patience and dedication. I received plenty of constructive cristicism from my fellow colleagues in the programme, and this helped me a lot in sharpening my thinking. I also learnt how to work with different people in a team, how to lead and move projects to meet the deadlines. The PhD programme was one of the main enabling factors that inspired me to start Kyber Network.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Luu The Loi (Computing \u201817), 27, Co-founder and CEO of blockchain startup Kyber Network, recounts his learning journey at NUS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5804"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9973,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5804\/revisions\/9973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}