Dr Gandhi Alagappan received his Bachelor of Engineering with First Class Honours and PhD in Photonics from Nanyang Technological University, supported by the prestigious ASEAN Undergraduate Scholarship and A*STAR Graduate Scholarship, respectively. He subsequently received the A*STAR Overseas Postdoctoral Fellowship to conduct research with Professor Sajeev John, a world-renowned computational physicist, at the University of Toronto.

Dr Alagappan has spent fifteen years at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), building extensive experience in computational science, engineering and photonics. He spent twelve years at the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing, where he served as a technical lead for multiple computational engineering projects. He is currently a Principal Scientist II at A*STAR Skin Research Labs, where he leads computational science efforts.

He is concurrently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Physics at the National University of Singapore, where he teaches in the Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence for Science programme. He previously served as an Adjunct Lecturer in Mathematics at Singapore Polytechnic.

His research bridges computational physics and artificial intelligence, with applications across engineering, photonics and biophysics. He has published more than 40 first-author papers in leading international journals, including a recent paper in Physical Review Letters.

Dr Alagappan brings to the Industry Advisory Panel extensive experience in artificial intelligence, computational engineering, research leadership and higher education. His multidisciplinary perspective will help ensure that engineering and technology programmes remain aligned with emerging technologies and evolving industry needs, while equipping students with the skills needed for their future careers.