Gerard Chung

Social Work, Technology, Parenting, and Interventions

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.

I hope 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 & Updates

Dec’24	Presented our AI Roleplaying tool at Higher Education in Singapore
Nov’24	Finished teaching SW4103 “Adv Research & Evaluation”
Oct’24	Presented at Social Welfare Conference in Taipei!
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

--- title: "Gerard Chung" description: "Social Work, Technology, Parenting, and Interventions" page-layout: article #image: /gerardchung.png resources: - "gerardchung.png" css: https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/jpswalsh/academicons@1/css/academicons.min.css --- ::: close-together ::: image-column ![](media/gerardchung1.png){.round .small-image}  ::: ::: text-column I'm an assistant professor of Social Work at the [National University of Singapore](https://fass.nus.edu.sg/swk/), researching on technology {{< iconify twemoji:robot size=1x >}} in social work. Visit our [SWAT](https://swat-nus.netlify.app/) research group. I graduated with a PhD in social work from [UNC at Chapel Hill](https://ssw.unc.edu/). 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](https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/966659135) 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. I hope 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. ::: ::: {{< pagebreak >}} <br> {{< include news.qmd >}} ::: {.column-page-inset .text-center} ```{=html} <style> .btn-outline-dark { border: none; /* Removes the border */ background-color: transparent; /* Makes the background transparent */ } </style> <a class="btn btn-outline-dark" href="https://github.com/gerardchung" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> <i class="bi bi-github" role='img' aria-label='Github'></i> </a> <a class="btn btn-outline-dark" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerardchung/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> <i class="bi bi-linkedin" role='img' aria-label='LinkedIn'></i> </a> <a class="btn btn-outline-dark" href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9aeYOx8AAAAJ&hl=en&inst=3212728378901010220" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> <i class="ai ai-google-scholar" role='img' aria-label='Google Scholar'></i> </a> <a class="btn btn-outline-dark" href="mailto:gcsk1982@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> <i class="bi bi-envelope" role='img' aria-label='email'></i> </a> ``` :::