Gerard Chung
I’m an assistant professor of Social Work at the National University of Singapore, researching on technology in social work. Visit our SWAT research group.
I graduated with a PhD in social work from UNC at Chapel Hill. I did my postdoctoral at A*STAR, and Social Service Research Centre. Before academia, I practiced as a social worker at Fei Yue Family Service Centre.
I’m Singaporean 🇸🇬. In my free time, I enjoy making Scratch games with my kids.
As a social work researcher, I’m intrigued by the complex relationship between our social work professional identity and the rapid technological changes we’re experiencing, particularly the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into our field. My research stems from a desire to understand how our professional identity conditions the way we interpret new technologies, influences the evolution of our roles and practices, and paradoxically, both enables and constrains our ability to adapt.
The core questions guiding this research are:
How does professional identity shape the perception and adoption of new technologies in social work?
In what ways does technological change, particularly AI, influence the evolution of social work roles?
How can the paradox of expertise both facilitate and hinder adaptation to technological shifts in the field?
I hope that social workers can employ three strategies when approaching the interaction with or use of AI: evaluative judgement, emotional reflexivity, and epistemic doubt. My research will explore and evaluate these and other practical strategies. My goal is to help us, as social workers, stay true to our values while embracing the potential of AI in our practice.
| News | |
|---|---|
| Sept'24 | I moderated a panel on positive youth development in Fei Yue Youth OutReach Conference. |
| July'24 | My replies "Social workers need to study use of AI carefully" to ST forum to an opinion letter. |
| June'24 | Social Work and Tech research lab created SWAT. TEG grant awarded! |
| May'24 |
Taught Practice Capstone II for social work Masters students Spoke at NRF AI4Science Workshop for Education about LLM-powered Role-playing for social work training |
| Mar'24 |
Awarded USD$5,000 AWS cloud credits by NUS IT for computational proposal work. Spoke at NUS Open House 2024 with Dr. Matthew Lim on "What Mental Wellness and Health Means in the 21st Century". Guest speaker for SW4880 "Technology in Social Work" on "How should we use technology in SW practice" where I spoke on predictive risk modeling. |
| Feb'24 | Comments on non-offending caregivers' reluctance to disclose child abuse in TodayOnline |
| Jan'24 | Taught SWM5117B "Practice Research Capstone" to MSW students |
| Oct'23 | Comments on why the extended 2 to 4-weeks paternity leave can help fathers to feel empowered in TodayOnline Big Read |
| Sept'23 | Our report on Symposium on In-Work Poverty and the Challenges of Getting By Among the Young” is out! |
| Aug'23 | Taught SW4103 "Research and Evaluation" |
| July'23 | Comments in a TodayOnline article “Child abuse cases in larger families: Why parents may pick on one child and who’s more at risk” |
| June'23 |
Completed a computational text analysis of adoption home assessment reports for Fei Yue Community Services. My A*STAR intern Samuel (LinkedIn) from NUS Statistics Department finished his internship! I joined NUS as an assistant professor! |