Anna Chew

As a child, I loved reading more than anything, and indulged in all genres. There wasn’t any mobile phones, computers or cable TV at home (now my age is evident?) so besides reading, I just played outdoors with my sister and neighbours.

We gathered dried leaves and fruits from the ground, dug up the soil to search for earthworms, threw winged mahogany seeds into the air to see whose lasted the longest in flight and climbed trees whenever we could. We thought we were just fooling around though, and didn’t realise we were dabbling in science all around us.

Once in school though, I found that the sciences and math made so much sense and by upper Secondary, was convinced and inspired by a lovely Biology teacher to want to teach Bio for life. University life was wonderful, and after graduation, I started teaching Biology in a JC where the enthusiastic and idealistic youth 17-18 years of age kept me excited and it was such a delightful time.

When my 3 children were born, teaching in school for long hours became tougher as I too wanted to take them out to roll in the grass, stomp in the muddy puddles and go where the “wild things” are. So I decided to take on a part-time research role in NTU which allowed me to also do volunteer work, church work, serve in parents’ associations and still keep learning science and doing science and sharing it with others.

“Anything can happen, my child, anything can be…” Shel Silverstein