Graces CHING Ngai Yan

Graces Ching is a research assistant under the Climate and Vegetation pillar in the Cooling Singapore 2.0 project. With a background in geography, she enjoys unpacking the environment-society interrelations so that she can better understand the world and people around her, inform policies and brainstorm solutions to create a better world.

She has conducted extensive field research in Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore applying a mix of qualitative, quantitative and experimental methodology. For Cooling Singapore 2.0, she will be exploring how local vegetation species provide vital ecosystem services and improves outdoor thermal comfort for pedestrians of all ages.

Before joining Cooling Singapore 2.0, she has undertaken several research projects of various topics throughout her undergraduate years. The first includes researching on outdoor thermal comfort such as surveying pedestrians in green spaces, and observing adaptive behaviours and walking habits of office workers in the Central Business District (CBD).

Graces was also a field survey supervisor for PUB’s Smart Showers Programme, leading a team of 15 other research assistants to collect shower consumption data for over 10000 households to evaluate the efficacy of smart technologies to reduce water wastage in Singapore. In 2020, she interviewed several climate experts in Singapore and Thailand and consolidated their communication methods to plug the perception gap between public and expert knowledge on climate change issues. All her experiences have contributed to building up interdisciplinary knowledge across various fields from climate change & sustainability to society & culture.