NUS Writing & Communication Hub is a friendly and welcoming space open to all members of the NUS community. We provide regular individual writing consultations and group workshops on rhetorical skills, revision strategies, and the conventions of style and structure appropriate to different modes of writing. As consultants, we are able to provide general feedback about the articulation of ideas, tone, audience awareness, argumentation, structure, grammar, clarity, and style, regardless of the discipline, at any stage of the writing process. While we retain a focus on curricular academic writing, we are also happy to support co-curricular and extra-curricular writing endeavours. We all share the same goal of helping students to come to a deeper understanding about their own writing processes.

Writing Lecturers

Tait Bergstrom
Director

Tait is the Director of the Writers’ Centre and an Assistant Professor in Humanities at Yale-NUS College. He received his A.B. in Chinese Language and Literature from Dartmouth College and did his doctoral work in language and literacy at the University of Washington. Before coming to Singapore, he taught English and rhetoric at the University of Washington where he was also the principal investigator for a research group designing educational writing software. His research involves second language literacy, multimodal communication, and the rhetoric of digital non-human actors such as data products and algorithms. He has also worked in China for an educational materials publisher and created comics for a children’s English language newspaper. He still makes comics with his friends when he can find the time.

Farheen Asim
Executive

Farheen is an Executive at the Writers’ Centre. She is a graduate of the Class of 2020 from Yale-NUS College, majoring in Philosophy and minoring in Mathematical, Computational, and Statistical Sciences. Before joining the Centre as a staff she served as a writing peer tutor for two years, where she especially enjoyed working with students on PPT and philosophy assignments. As an executive, she will be tutoring alongside managing the Centre’s various programs, including the Peer Tutoring program, Academic Workshops, and Creative Writing Workshops. Outside the Centre, she enjoys reading comics and fantasy novels, has a small painting/drawing practice, and loves bouldering on the weekends.

Carissa Foo
Writing Lecturer

Dr Carissa Foo’s main field of research is early twentieth century women’s writing and its dialogues with continental philosophy, especially phenomenology and existentialism. She completed her Ph.D. thesis on women’s experiences of places in modernist works at Durham University, UK. Before joining Yale-NUS College, Dr Foo was a tutor at Durham University and Nanyang Technological University. She has published in feminist journals and her first novel is If It Were Up to Mrs Dada (Epigram, 2018).

Ila Tyagi
Writing Lecturer

Ila’s research fields include the environmental humanities, science and technology, and modern and contemporary Anglo-American literature and visual media. She received her Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Brown University in 2009. Ila worked as a public relations executive after college, handling accounts in the renewable energy sector. She completed a Master’s degree in American Studies at Columbia University in 2013, writing a thesis on the sense of taste via scenes of women eating food in film. Her interests in sensory perception, cinema, and energy culminated in a doctoral dissertation, “Extending the Eye: The American Oil Industry in Moving Images,” examining technologies used within the oil industry to enhance the human sense of sight. Upon finishing her joint Ph.D. in Film Studies and American Studies at Yale University in 2018, she arrived in Singapore for the first time, drawn to the way the country combines her favourite aspects of the two she grew up in, India and Kuwait. Her experience as a writing advisor includes serving as a Writing Fellow for three years at Brown, and as a Writing Consultant for three years at Yale.

Lawrence Ypil
Writing Lecturer

Lawrence Lacambra Ypil is a poet and essayist from Cebu, Philippines. He received an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Washington University in St. Louis on a Fulbright Scholarship. His first book of poems, The Highest Hiding Place, was given the Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award. His work has received The Academy of American Poets Prize, the Philippines Free Press Awards, and the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards among others. His work explores the role of material culture in the construction of cultural identity and memory and dwells in the intersection of text and image, poetry and the essay. His latest manuscript is an investigation into early twentieth century postcolonial photography.

Writing Peer Tutors

Hanae Gomez
Graduating Class of 2023, NUS

Major: Environmental Studies
Languages: English (Great), Japanese (Good), Mandarin (Okay), Bahasa Melayu (Working on it)

Hanae is an Environmental Studies major and Arts and Humanities minor, each a convenient front to explore the other. Her own first drafts never look pretty, but she approaches editing them with radical forgiveness. Since writing is an iterative process, she believes everyone can be a good writer. As a peer tutor, she hopes to encourage her peers to let their personal style shine through with clarity and cogency.

Elmer Loh
Graduating Class of 2023, NUS

Majors: Life Sciences (NUS) and Liberal Arts (Waseda University)
Languages: English, French, Mandarin
Peer Tutor Certifications: Published in The Red Stone, NUS' student journal for philosophy

Elmer is a double degree student in NUS and Waseda University. He is interested in philosophy, with a particular focus on Heidegger and Arendt, amongst others. As someone who has had experience teaching both English and French as foreign languages, he places emphasis on a deeper linguistic and cultural understanding. He enjoys reading essays from their philosophical underpinnings and assumptions. As such, he has a penchant for consults in which students conceptualise and frame their essays.

Engie Wong
Graduating Class of 2023, Yale-NUS College

Major: Global Affairs
Languages: English, Mandarin (Limited Working Proficiency), Arabic (MSA Beginner)
Peer Tutor Certifications: Big Writing Projects with Prof Carissa Foo (Capstone & Research Projects), Creative Writing Projects with Prof Lawrence Ypil, TESOL Certification (Completed February 2021)

Engie is a Global Affairs major and Chinese Studies minor from Yale-NUS College. She is allergic to a million and one things but that doesn't stop her from learning about them! She also has a budding board games library fueled by an uncontrollable affinity (some say addiction) to playing and collecting board games. Engie went on semester abroad at Georgetown University in Qatar, and enjoys meeting students from any and all backgrounds. Although venturing into the education field was at first prompted by a heated argument between her debate coaches, Engie has since become increasingly interested in teaching and culturally relevant pedagogy, as well as higher education, IBCs, and education policy-making. She loves editing and helping her peers gain confidence in their own writing skills. You can spot Engie snacking (or preparing to) wherever she is!

Tavis Tan
Graduating Class of 2022, NUS

Major: Global Affairs
Languages: English
Peer Tutor Certifications: Big Writing Projects with Prof Carissa Foo (Capstone & Research Projects)

Tavis is a Global Affairs major and Literature minor and is on the Concurrent Degree Programme at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He is currently a Masters in Public Policy candidate specialising in Economics and Development. When he is not brewing his fifth cup of coffee for the day, he can be found in the corner of the library impulsively buying books online. As someone who is often described as (very) talkative, Tavis enjoys getting to know his tutees and believes that tutoring should take place in a safe and comfortable environment. Having written countless bad drafts for classes and revised too many personal statements for job/scholarship/fellowship applications, Tavis knows how intimidating the writing process can be. As such, he is intentional with meeting his tutees at where they are at, and strives to ensure that they leave his tutoring sessions more confident than when they first entered.

Matthew Ling
Graduating Class of 2024, NUS

Major: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
Languages: English, French, Mandarin (Limited), Spanish (Limited), Cantonese (Limited)

Matthew is a PPE major and MCS minor from Canada. He believes that writing starts with thinking, which is sometimes harder than writing itself. Particularly, he is interested in the process of turning thoughts into language and helping writers through this process. For him, good writing is first concise, precise, and accessible, be it for course papers, capstones & theses, CVs, or personal statements. From there, he enjoys helping writers navigate writing expectations in their discipline and finding their style. While he's not reading or dancing, you'll probably find him cleaning out the pantry or checking to see if it's been restocked!

Timothy Yee
Graduating Class of 2023, NUS

Majors: Life Sciences and Psychology
Languages: English, Mandarin, Japanese
Peer Tutor Certifications: Published Japanese first-person singular pronouns revisited: A semantic and cultural interpretation with Prof Jock Wong

Timothy is a Singaporean student who has had deep interests in wanting to help others improve their writing. After having seen the efforts done by NUS to assist students in academic writing, he too became motivated to want to join these efforts. He thus signed up to be a writing tutor. Among the different writing formats, he has most experience with scientific writing, not much so with creative writing.

Seung Eun (Leticia) Lee
Graduating Class of 2025, NUS

(Major yet to be declared)
Languages: English, Korean, Portuguese (Conversational), Spanish (Conversational)

Leticia is a sophomore from South Korea. She is still unsure about what she wants to major in and is exploring her options. One thing for certain is that she has a passion for learning languages. She's going through a love-hate relationship with Chinese at the moment. As a Peer Tutor, she hopes to support students in their writing by helping them convey what they want to say clearly and coherently. She understands the frustration that comes with writing and hopes to create a safe space for students to talk about their ideas. When she's not at the Writers' Centre, Leticia loves to FaceTime her (very cute) dog, binge-watch Netflix, and go cafe-hopping.

Loh Ye-Han Brian
Graduating Class of 2025, NUS

Majors: Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Science
Languages: English, Mandarin, Japanese (Elementary)

Brian is a third year NUS-Waseda Double Degree student. His first degree is in Chemistry with a specialisation in Material Chemistry. He is currently overseas pursuing his second degree in International Liberal Studies. As a chemist by training, he wishes to prove that one can be proficient in both the Arts and Sciences. Through tutoring, he hopes to help change the conception that science students cannot do arts. When not in the lab, he spends time playing with the UTown cats (or trying not to get ignored by them), nerding out about anime, and participating in various sports.

Max Pasakorn
Graduating Class of 2024, Yale-NUS College

Major: Arts & Humanities
Languages: English, Thai (Conversational), Mandarin (Conversational)
Peer Tutor Certifications: Big Writing Projects with Prof Carissa Foo (Capstone & Research Projects)

Max Pasakorn (he/she/they, in no particular order) is a Thai-born, Singapore-based poet, essayist, makeup enthusiast and, most importantly, a student of the vibrant Arts & Humanities major at Yale-NUS. Prior to and during their college career, Max has worked as a multimedia journalist in Singapore Press Holdings, a marketing professional at local SMEs and an editorial assistant at Ethos Books. Max's debut non-fiction chapbook, A Study in Our Selves, will be published in December 2022 by Neon Hemlock Press. With workshop experience in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction in both academic and non-academic settings, Max hopes to work with and inspire folks to write and share their stories. A firm believer in writing as a self-development tool, Max is excited and honoured to be a part of any writer's journey as they work together to brainstorm, organise or revise essays or creative projects from the common curriculum or elective courses.

Ziying Wang
Graduating Class of 2023, Yale-NUS College

Major: Psychology
Languages: English, Mandarin
Peer Tutor Certifications: Big Writing Projects with Prof Carissa Foo (Capstone & Research Projects)

Ziying is a psychology major, philosophy minor, and coffee lover (addict). She likes to think about philosophical questions using psychological research evidence. One of the things she definitely enjoys as a psych major is to explain to her family relatives that she cannot read people's mind or predict their MBTI types. Although a huge fun in logic and structured thinking, she also enjoys emotional movies and anime a lot. Her biggest achievement during the last summer was binge watching spyXfamily in 2 days. As someone who feared writing before coming to Yale-NUS, Ziying hopes to spend her time as a peer tutor to help students grow a joy in writing, to support them to take the writing journey at their own pace, and also to push them for deeper thinking.

Nicol Yong
Graduating Class of 2023, Yale-NUS College

Majors: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
Languages: English, Malay, Mandarin (Intermediate), Bahasa Indonesia (Intermediate), Cantonese (Conversational)
Peer Tutor Certifications: Big Writing Projects with Prof Carissa Foo (Capstone & Research Projects), Creative Writing projects with Prof Lawrence Ypil

Nicol is a senior Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) major from Malaysia. Whenever she's free, she enjoys reading a good book, over-caffeinating herself, and debating random topics with others. She never says no to a good adventure (if it is convincingly pitched). Before joining Yale-NUS College, she had her fair share of writing anxiety. As a current peer tutor, she enjoys journeying with others to make writing a positive and fun rather than negative experience. She is a firm believer that everyone has a unique voice to be shared with others and strives to support that during tutoring sessions in any way she can.

Freddy Chong
Graduating Class of 2025, NUS

Major: Statistics
Languages: English, Mandarin

Freddy is a Statistics major from Singapore. As a polytechnic graduate, he felt ill-prepared for university writing in his first year. Writing, to him then (and still is), is a medium to liberate one's thoughts and fears. Yet, academic writing has its own set of demands and rigour, which may instil anxiety in novice writers. He empathises with the fears and self-doubts that students may face in academic writing. He believes that those struggles are part of the process of threshold learning - learning that does not progress unless through a transformative way of understanding concepts. Through inspiring his peers to trust in the process, he hopes to support writers in their threshold breakthroughs to see writing as a mindful activity for personal growth. Outside of academics, Freddy is obsessed with mahjong. During his free time, he likes to take walks or to lim kopi (drink coffee) with his friends. Ask any of his peers and they would not be hard-pressed to tell you of his free spirit and mindful attitudes about life!

Ananya Joshi
Graduating Class of 2023, NUS

Major: Chemical Engineering
Languages: English, Hindi (Conversational), Marathi (Conversational)
Peer Tutoring Experience: 2 years of tutoring experience with academic essays, primarily focusing on thesis, context, structure and ideation

Ananya is a fourth year Chemical Engineering major with a keen interest in academic writing and literature. Coming from an engineering background, she felt first-hand the hesitation when writing essays for her USP classes but quickly realised that writing skills which promote clarity, engagement and inquiry are not exclusive to any one field. She enjoys working with peers to best frame and capture their own ideas and is very grateful to be able to learn from every session she has. Hence, she is keen on sessions focused on developing ideas and structuring arguments or evidence for any writing assignment.

Loh An Lin
Graduating Class of 2025, NUS College

Major: History
Languages: English, Mandarin, Bahasa Indonesia (Elementary)

An Lin is a history major (Chinese Studies minor) who arrived in NUS College (previously University Scholars Programme) via a 6-year gap year in professional theatre. In Year 1, she too had faced many panic-inducing sleepless nights, wondering if she could even write well. Along the way, she has met many kind writing centre tutors and professors who shaped how she engages with writing. She is thus grateful to be here as a tutor to support others along the way. In no particular order, she was once a drama teacher, debate coach, spoken-word poetry coach, trained facilitator and history relief teacher. She thus has a soft spot for tutoring sessions related to the above topics. Beyond the above, she hopes to offer a safe refuge (of 45min) for anyone feeling lost in their writing journey.

Esther Koh
Graduating Class of 2023, NUS

Major: Literature
Languages: English, Mandarin

Esther resides in sunny Singapore. She enjoys conversing with all kinds of people and animals. Her favourite part of being a writer's centre tutor is being able to talk to different people within the school community. She hopes to help people express themselves honestly and effectively through writing.

Kristina Gweneth Ponce Simundo
Graduating Class of 2022, NUS

Major: Environmental Studies
Languages: English, Tagalog, Mandarin

Kristina is an Environmental Studies major and an Arts and Humanities minor, and has an equal love for both. In the 2 semesters of working in the Writers' Centre, Kristina finds that she most enjoys getting to meet new people and helping them write their way to their truth. Kristina places a lot of value on tutees feeling safe to make mistakes. She believes that an essay is written through laborious, iterative cycle of editing and brainstorming, and her role as a peer tutor is to help students sculpt their way to their desired essay. When she is not at the Writers' Centre, she is still, always, writing to make meaning of the overwhelming world we live in. Besides that, you can find Kristina (attempting) to paint, curating wildly specific Pinterest boards, or navigating her complicated relationship with growing plants.

Yuki Koh
Graduating Class of 2022/2023, NUS

Major: Social Work
Languages: English, Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu (Can comprehend, but is poor at speaking), Singapore Sign Language and Exact English

Yuki is a Social Work major from Singapore. A lover of cheap and spicy food, you can find Yuki guzzling down Ma La or Spicy Korean Noodles. If not, you can catch her reading literature, classics, or mystery novels from Agatha Christie. Over the weekends, Yuki loves watching classic Asian films and slow cinema. She also games and loves her PC to bits (maybe more so than food). As someone who adores writing and screenwriting, she hopes to empower people to become better writers themselves. But it's never really one way either; she finds inspiration in the essays that Engineers and Arts students give her, and is never afraid to listen to new ideas. Above all, she dearly enjoys sessions that aim to develop argumentative flow beyond PEEL, harness critical thinking, improve stylistic choices and tone, and which require brainstorming. She has experience with post-graduate and undergraduate students.

Tharun Suresh
Graduating Class of 2023, NUS

Major: English Literature
Languages: English, Tamil, French, Spanish

Tharun Suresh is an English Literature major from Singapore. Aside from being bothered by his incredibly mischievous cat at home, he is a filmmaker and creative writer in his free time. He also loves a good history book when he can afford it. Tharun was a Writing Centre tutor in his third year at university with the (former) University Scholar's Programme, and enjoys working with students to better express themselves with the confidence and clarity needed to ace those dreaded final essays.

Ning Yiran
Graduating Class of 2023, NUS

Major: Environmental Studies
Languages: English, Mandarin, Japanese (Conversational)

Yiran is an Environmental Studies major from Singapore. She is a Peer Tutor because she believes that anyone can use the power of writing to get their voice heard. When we start writing, we don't always know exactly what we wish to say, but we are rewarded with a piece of good writing when we confront our thoughts and persist in forming them into a coherent argument or story. From academic papers to op-eds and application essays, Yiran hopes to guide her peers in developing their ability to use this powerful tool for good. Besides writing, Yiran is passionate about contributing to the Yale-NUS community in her senior year, and to the environmental and climate justice movement, locally and in the world.

Tanya Sharma
Graduating Class of 2023, NUS

Majors: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
Peer Tutor Certifications: Big Writing Projects with Prof Carissa Foo (Capstone & Research Projects) and Creative Writing with Prof Lawrence Ypil
Languages: English, Hindi

Tanya (she/her) is a Philosophy, Politics, and Economics major and Global Affairs minor from Mumbai, India. At school and outside, she is interested in international development, especially issues surrounding gender, health, education, and agency, and these find their way in most of her writing. She is drawn to the social aspects of writing -- she loves hearing people talk about their interests, brainstorming arguments together, and thinking about how to re-work an essay until it feels just right. Tanya deeply values the ways the Writers' Centre introduces her to new parts of the community, and she is invested in making the consultation room a safe, friendly space where people can bring their whole selves. When not trying to keep up with her newfound hobbies for the semester (currently theatre, basketball, and rollerblading), Tanya can be found sipping Brewhouse or napping on the hammocks in the college courtyards.

Joshua
Graduating Class of 2023, Yale-NUS College

Major: Urban Studies
Languages: English (Native), Filipino (Conversational), Mandarin Chinese (Intermediate)

Joshua is an Urban Studies major and MCS minor from Zamboanga City, Philippines. When he started studying at Yale-NUS College, he spent his first semester relearning how to write, because college assignments were nothing like his high school essays. With support from his peers and professors at Yale-NUS, Joshua grew confident in his writing and joined the Writers’ Centre to join others in their journeys with academic writing. Joshua believes that great papers are clear, well-structured, and most of all grounded and motivated. He loves helping NUS students develop strong writing instincts and unlearn counterproductive habits they may have picked up in high school. When he’s not writing, Joshua is walking around the city with his camera, looking for coffee beans, or watching RuPaul’s Drag Race with his boyfriend.