Personal Achievements

Undergraduate Graduation Representative, Excellence in Research & Sports

National University of Singapore Jul 2008
Chosen among 8,733 to meet the President of Singapore and interviewed by a National Newspaper
See article

Ironman Langkawi

Ironman Feb 2007
Completed the extreme triathlon comprising of a 3.8km swim, 180.2km cycle, 42.2km run

2009 World Games Kaohsiung Pre-event

World Games Oct 2006
Represented Singapore in the Dragon Boat World Championship Pre-event held in Taiwan

Fun facts

Random facts about me

Education

 
 
 
 
 

Visiting Graduate Student

Laboratory of DNA Information Analysis, Human Genome Center, Institue of Medical Science, University of Tokyo

Jun 2009 – Mar 2011 Tokyo
 
 
 
 
 

Doctor of Philosophy in Computational Biology

National University of Singapore Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering

Aug 2008 – Sep 2012 Singapore

 

  • Thesis submitted 22 September 2012
 
 
 
 
 

Bachelor of Computing in Computational Biology

National University of Singapore

Aug 2004 – May 2008 Singapore

 

  • Graduated with Second Class (Upper Division) Honors
 
 
 
 
 

Diploma in Multimedia & Infocomm Technology With Merit

Nanyang Polytechnic Singapore

Jul 1999 – Jun 2002 Singapore

 

  • Graduated second in cohort

Awards

Granted Scholarship for PhD study (approx. SGD 250,000)

National University of Singapore Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering Aug 2008

Top 2 students in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

Defence Science & Technology Agency Prize Jun 2008

Top 2nd person in graduating cohort

IBM Singapore Silver Medal Aug 2002

Most outstanding Final Year Project in graduating cohort

IBM Singapore Book Prize Aug 2002

Experience

Work experience

 
 
 
 
 

Senior Data Science Manager

Indeed Singapore

Jan 2021 – Mar 2023 Singapore
As the leader of the JobSeeker department in the APAC region, I oversaw a team of 15 scientists, including managers. Our department focused on developing statistical and modeling solutions to enhance the job seeking experience and improve the chances of job seekers finding employment.
 
 
 
 
 

Founder of StocksCafe

StocksCafe

Mar 2015 – Present
In my spare time, I independently built Stocks.cafe from the ground up, navigating and mastering numerous challenges along the way. Today, it has evolved into a trusted platform with a loyal community of thousands of paying users.
 
 
 
 
 

Software Engineer → Senior Data Scientist → Data Science Manager

Indeed Japan

Aug 2014 – Dec 2020 Tokyo

 

  • Built full-stack data science solutions for various applications, including Recommendation systems, Spam Detection, and Jobs Discovery.
  • Designed various interview questions and conducted over 500 hours of interviews for both Software Engineering and Data Science positions.
 
 
 
 
 

Data Scientist

Rakuten, Inc.

Aug 2013 – Jul 2014 Tokyo

 

  • Optimized Rakuten Ichiba’s Ad platform (such as keyword extraction, paid search ranking logic, optimal ad pricing)
  • Proposed and executed customer acquisition and nurturing strategies/algorithms for Kobo business
 
 
 
 
 

Web Engineer

DeNA Co. Ltd.

Oct 2012 – Jul 2013 Tokyo

 

  • Web engineer in an IT company with the main revenue coming from mobile games
  • Involved in the Mixi-Mobage project and devised the game popularity ranking algorithm

Experience

Part-time and Internship

 
 
 
 
 

Research Analyst

Four Elements Capital Ltd.

Mar 2012 – May 2012 Singapore

 

  • Research Analyst in a Systematic Commodity Hedge Fund
  • Responsible for the collection, data analysis and indicators of the grains industry
 
 
 
 
 

Software Engineer

HedgeSPA Pte. Ltd.

Dec 2011 – Feb 2012 Singapore

 

  • Software Engineer in a Risk Analysis Software Development Firm
  • Back-end performance tuning. Improved runtime of numerous functions by >50%
 
 
 
 
 

Scientific Programmer

Google Summer of Code 2011

Apr 2011 – Aug 2011

 

  • Scientific Programmer for an open source project, BioJava
  • Eventually lead to a scientific publication
 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Assistant

National University of Singapore

Aug 2008 – Dec 2008 Singapore

 

  • Teaching Assistant for “Introduction to Computing” module to non-computing students
  • General consensus of end-semester students’ feedback: A friendly and approachable tutor
 
 
 
 
 

Research Assistant

Kent Ridge Digital Labs (Currently known as I2R)

Oct 2001 – Nov 2001 Singapore

 

  • Research Assistant in the bioinformatics lab of a Research Institute
  • Led to my first publication before I started my undergraduate studies

Publications

(2012). Embracing noise to improve cross batch prediction accuracy. BMC Systems Biology.

PDF DOI

(2012). Improved statistical model checking methods for pathway analysis. BMC Bioinformatics.

PDF DOI

(2012). Intrinsically disordered proteins aggregate at fungal cell to cell channels and regulate multicellular homeostasis. PNAS.

PDF DOI

(2012). BioJava: an open source framework for bioinformatics in 2012. Bioinformatics.

PDF DOI

(2011). Strategy of finding the optimal number of features on gene expression data. Electronics Letters.

PDF DOI

(2011). Online model checking approach based parameter estimation to a neuronal fate decision simulation model in C. elegans with HFPNe. Molecular Biosystems.

PDF DOI

(2011). MIRACH: efficient model checker for quantitative biological pathway models. Bioinformatics.

PDF DOI

(2010). DA 1.0: Parameter estimation of biological pathways using data assimilation approach. Bioinformatics.

PDF DOI

(2009). Sirius PSB: a generic system for analysis of biological sequences. Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.

PDF DOI

(2007). Recognition of polyadenylation sites from arabidopsis genomic sequences. Genome Informatics.

PDF DOI

(2004). Content analysis of the core promoter region of human genes. In Silico Biology.

PDF

Projects

Websites and software I have built

Have you always wanted to invest your money but overwhelmed by the amount of data out and never got started? StocksCafe aims to provide you with actionable information in an easy to digest approach so that you can start investing today!

BioJava is an open-source project dedicated to providing a Java framework for processing biological data. It provides analytical and statistical routines, parsers for common file formats and allows the manipulation of sequences and 3D structures. The goal of the Biojava project is to facilitate rapid application development of bioinformatics and I was a significant contributor of this project.

A Statistical Online Model Checker for Biological Pathway Models, based on the PLTLs formalism for expressing the rules/properties to be checked. MIRACH can currently check pathways models written in popular formats such as CSML or SBML.

Data Assimilation (DA) is a computational approach that estimates unknown parameters in a pathway model using time-course data. Here, we developed a Java software with an intuitive interface to allow users to carry out parameters estimation using DA.
Slides Follow

Sirius Prediction System Builder (Sirius PSB) is a software package designed to enable biologists with little or no computing knowledge to carry out sequence analysis using computational methods with ease and speed via a graphical user interface. Built into the software is the ability to build high-quality prediction models, visualization, multi-dimensional protein search, and more.

Talks

December 2017 12:00 AM Indeed, Inc., India

January 2017 12:00 AM Indeed, Inc., Singapore

March 2014 12:00 AM SUNY Korea, Korea
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March 2014 12:00 AM KAIST, Korea
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February 2008 12:00 AM National University of Singapore, Singapore
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December 2007 12:00 AM Biopolis, Singapore
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October 2007 12:00 AM McGill University, Canada
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Stories

Dollars & Sense
1 min read
By the ripe old age of 40, Evan Koh had a PhD in Bioinformatics and already achieved financial independence. His journey to being financially free, though, was anything but a straightforward one.

Rin
12 min read
An account of my Ironman story, as told from my wife’s perspective (originally posted on her blog)