Hi, I’m Zara! Thanks for visiting my page.

I am an AI engineer and aspiring philosopher researching AI safety and alignment in fields such as healthcare.

I was awarded one of Girls in Tech 2023 by the Singapore Computer Society and the Infocomm Media Authority (IMDA) for rising technology stars. I am also the first Youth Ambassador for She Loves Tech, the world's largest startup platform for women and tech in over 75 countries.

Currently I serve as an AI researcher at the National University of Singapore where I’m supervised by Professor Dean Ho (Chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department). My first paper focuses on AI-based Alzheimer’s detection, and my current research evaluates how well large language models (LLMs) understand the speech of Alzheimer’s patients.

In 2024, I was an intern at Singapore’s technology and media regulator Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) where I developed an AI and Ethics curriculum based on the government’s AI Verify open-source toolkit and Generative AI governance framework. During the summer of 2025, I will be an AI Engineer intern at HTX, Singapore’s agency focused on enhancing homeland security, where I will be working on fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) .

I’m committed to advancing intergenerational dialogue about the benefits and risks of applied AI. I have published several articles in Singapore’s daily Straits Times newspaper about educational frameworks for ethical engagement with AI. In 2019, I founded Ethical Coders, a youth club to encourage debate on the ethics of technology through sci-fi books, films, and interviews in partnership with Singapore's iconic ArtScience Museum. Since 2022, I have delivered my workshop "The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence" to various audiences including the global conference for She Loves Tech.

I’m a student at United World College Singapore (UWC) and Stanford Online High School's philosophy program. At UWC, I co-founded the Dialectics Society philosophy club. In computer science, I have completed edX courses such as CS50 by HarvardX and Algorithms: Design and Analysis (Part I and Part II) by Stanford University, and on Coursera I’ve completed Mathematics for Machine Learning Specialization by Imperial College London and Machine Learning Specialization by Stanford University.

As the She Loves Tech Youth Ambassador, I am helping to build a community of girls empowered by AI and robotics, deliver tech education workshops globally, represent youth in public forums and conferences such as the United Nations, and collaborate with governments and corporations to teach and hire girls.

I also founded Octa, a travel chatbot that I coded for planning family holidays, and published Zara's Travels: From Scotland to Singapore, an interactive memoir about crossing Eurasia on the world's longest train journey. I’ve traveled to more than 50 countries so far!

You can find me on LinkedIn but I only check it occasionally. 😊