Fannie Khng Kiat Hui is the Assistant Dean of Research Management (Office of Education Research), and a Research Scientist with the Centre for Research in Child Development, National Institute of Education (NIE). She received her B. Soc. Sci (Honours in Psychology) from the National University of Singapore and PhD in Psychology from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.
Her work is situated at the interface between cognitive psychology and education, focused on executive functioning (EF) and self-regulation. She is particularly interested in inhibitory control and attention in children and adolescents, their measurement, and how they contribute to other aspects of development such as academic achievement and cognitive-emotional self-regulation.

Her earlier work focused on the role of inhibitory abilities in complex performance such as mathematical problem solving and deductive reasoning. Current work focuses on understanding the longitudinal development of children’s EF, self-regulation, and well-being (including the role of parents and schools), how they interact with other aspects of development (e.g., motor skills) to influence child outcomes, as well as interventions (such as mindfulness) to enhance EF, self-regulation and well-being in children. She works with interested schools to develop, evaluate and refine such interventions, such as sustainable teacher-led school-based mindfulness practices.


She is also interested in neuroscience applications to education and have utilized functional neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI and EEG to study cognitive and affective processes. For instance, one study utilized wireless EEG to examine a school-based intervention to reduce test anxiety and enhance attention and test performance in children; another utilized fMRI to examine neurofunctional differences underlying individual differences in inhibiting interference from prior learning. She teaches courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, covering topics in quantitative research methodology, applied cognitive science and science of learning, and mindfulness in education.

She also supervises postgraduate, undergraduate, and pre-university level students. Student awards under her supervision include the NIE Deans Commendation for Undergraduate Educational Research; First place, NTU DISCOVER URECA Poster Competition (Psychology and Behavioral Sciences category); Gold award, Nanyang Research Programme Symposium; Silver award, Singapore Science and Engineering Fair.