PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Alvin Chan

Also known as Alvin Chan Guo Wei

Alvin Chan is a computer scientist whose work connects adversarial learning with medical AI. He earned a BEng in Bioengineering at Nanyang Technological University and completed a computer science PhD there in 2021. He coauthored an ICLR Outstanding Paper on hypercomplex multiplication in 2021 and a 2025 paper introducing COMET for lipid nanoparticle design. He is an assistant professor jointly appointed in NTU's College of Computing and Data Science and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.

Works
40
Citations
744
h-index
10
Links
Website and Google Scholar

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2013

    Bioengineering at NTU

    At Nanyang Technological University, he earns a BEng in Bioengineering in 2013.

  2. 2020

    Robustness through input gradients

    At CVPR 2020, he coauthors “What it Thinks is Important is Important: Robustness Transfers through Input Gradients,” which transfers adversarial robustness across tasks and model architectures by matching input gradients.

  3. 2021

    An ICLR Outstanding Paper

    In 2021, he coauthors “Beyond Fully-Connected Layers with Quaternions: Parameterization of Hypercomplex Multiplications with 1/n Parameters.” The paper proposes a parameterization for arbitrary dimensions and wins ICLR's 2021 Outstanding Paper award.

  4. 2021

    Scientist at IHPC

    In October 2021, he presents “Better AI for safer self-driving” as a Scientist at the AI3/Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) and a PhD candidate at NTU. His research spans adversarial learning and deep learning for medical applications.

  5. 2021

    A computer science PhD

    He completes a PhD in Computer Science at Nanyang Technological University in 2021, supported by the Nanyang President's Graduate Scholarship.

  6. 2024

    Postdoctoral work at MIT

    In 2024, he is a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School. At MIT's Traverso Lab, he applies deep learning to nanomedicine.

  7. August 2025

    COMET for lipid nanoparticles

    In August 2025, he coauthors a Nature Nanotechnology paper introducing COMET, a transformer-based model trained on LANCE to predict lipid nanoparticle performance and stability.

  8. As of October 2026

    Assistant professor at NTU

    As of October 2026, he is an assistant professor jointly appointed in NTU's College of Computing and Data Science and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.

Career

  1. Since 2019Nanyang Technological UniversityAssistant Professor
  2. 2024–2026Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPostdoctoral Fellow
  3. 2024–2026Mass General BrighamPostdoctoral Fellow
  4. From 2024Harvard Medical SchoolPostdoctoral Fellow
  5. 2022–2026Harvard University
  6. From 2021Science and Engineering Research CouncilScientist
  7. 2020–2023Agency for Science, Technology and Research

Education

  1. 2021Nanyang Technological UniversityPhD
  2. 2013Nanyang Technological UniversityBEng

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Alvin Chan. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Nanyang Technological University. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Nanyang Technological University. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Alvin Chan yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Alvin Chan alvinchan.io. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Publications | Alvin Chan alvinchan.io. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. CVPR 2020 Open Access Repository openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. The paper co-authored by Shuai Zhang wins the ICLR 2021 outstanding paper award | Institute for Computing Platforms - Systems Group | ETH Zurich systems.ethz.ch. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Research Community | Centre of AI in Medicine (C-AIM) | NTU Singapore ntu.edu.sg. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Reimagining The Future With High-Performance Computing (HPC) | NSCC nscc.sg. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Designing lipid nanoparticles using a transformer-based neural network | Nature Nanotechnology nature.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Faculty Directory | Health Informatics Lab (HIL) | NTU Singapore ntu.edu.sg. Checked 20 October 2026.