Trang Do's home page

Kia ora! Welcome to my home page!

I am Trang. I am currently a senior research and data analyst at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), New Zealand.

Research

My research interests broadly lie in Data Science, Intelligent Systems and Interdisciplinary Computing, covering all software, hardware, and firmware aspects.

Currently I focus more on Machine Learning and Deep Learning, Explainable AI, Data Analysis and Visualisation, specifically in the directions of Tourism, Health Informatics, Drug Discovery, and Intelligent Systems.

My publications can be found here.

Projects

In 2020, 2022, and 2023, I was awarded 3 grants by Whitireia and Weltec Research and Innovation Fund to work on "AI framework to predict drug-target interaction" and "Deep generative and predictive models in drug discovery" (website). In these projects, I am the sole principal investigator.

In 2022, my research team developed an AI system which understands Māori designs using deep learning techniques and Python. The intelligent system went through a trial in six stores in Wellington and achieved an accuracy of more than 95%.

I am also involved in a cross-agency project on synthetic data generation in the Stats NZ IDI environment.

Teaching

I teach IT5507 Fundamentals of Data Science (website), DS6504 Business Intelligence and Big Data (website), DS7502 Intelligent System Development (website), and DS6502 Data Analysis and Visualisation. In these courses, I have redesigned and redeveloped the course contents and components, for which I have received excellent feedback from my students, my peers, my institute, and industry people.

I also developed the Bachelor and Diploma programmes for my school, which are currently implemented throughout Whitiriea and Weltec.

In 2021, I was awarded a Teaching Excellence Award as a runner up by Whitireia and Weltec.

Services

Besides teaching, I also supervise final year postgraduate and undergraduate students. One of my students’ projects was awarded the Best Industrial Award in 2021 (video). One of my master's students’ final year projects has received the highest score in the institute history.

In 2020, I represented Weltec to give a talk entitled "Up skill yourself with Big Data" in a webinar by Artisan Digital Girls, an organization promoting New Zealand education to overseas students. The talk received very good feedback from more than 50 attendees and the organizer.

I also ran data science training courses for NZ government organisations such as the Ministry of Pacific People and major banks in New Zealand (on-site) and for international companies from the UK and Australia (online).

I'm also on the programme committees and review boards for a number of well-known international conferences and journals.

Work Experience

Before joining MBIE in 2023, I was a senior lecturer at the Wellington Institute of Technology (Weltec), one of New Zealand's oldest tertiary education institutions and the second-oldest in Wellington.

I worked as a research scientist at A*STAR, the largest government research agency in Singapore, from 2013 to 2020.

I was also a lecturer in the School of Information and Communication Technology, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam (HUST), from 2003 to 2007.

I also worked for the National University of Singapore as a teaching assistant for 2.5 years.

Qualifications

I earned my Ph.D. degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering in 2013 from the National University of Singapore (NUS), which ranked 11th in the 2022 QS World University Rankings.

I also earned my M.Sc. degree in Information Processing and Communications in 2005 and my B.Eng. degree in Information Technology in 2003 from the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, one of the top universities in Vietnam.

I have additionally achieved the NZQF2993 Adult and Tertiary Teaching NZ Certificate in 2021 with excellent results.

Hobbies

When I have free time, I love doing photography to capture the most beautiful moments of my family members, friends, and the people and things around me.

Besides photography, I also have a huge passion for gardening and designing gardens.

And travelling has always been my favourite hobby too.