Dr Seah Lay Hoon is a senior research scientist in the Office of Education Research in National Institute of Education, and a member of the Learning Sciences and Innovation Programme within the Centre of Research in Pedagogy and Practice.

As a former secondary science teacher, her encounter with students struggling with the use of language in science motivated her to undertake graduate studies overseas. She received her Master of Education and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she acquired a strong foundation in Systemic Functional Linguistics for understanding the language demands that students face in learning science. Following her graduate studies, she worked at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, as a post-doctoral fellow from 2010-2012.

Her research portfolio spans over a dozen projects with research focus ranging from science to mathematics education, representation-focused instruction, Knowledge Building, learner perspective, technology-mediated learning and game-based learning. In particular, the five projects that she has led allow her to build a research program that has progressed from understanding student challenges to unpacking the language awareness that science teachers would need to teach disciplinary literacy well. Her research insights have led to articles published in international peer-reviewed journals, such as Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, Research in Science Education and International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education. She has also served as a managing editor of Asia Pacific Journal of Education since 2019.

Beyond research, she has also taught several graduate courses: (1) NEDD 803 Answering Questions with Qualitative Data, (2) MEd 872 Educational Inquiry II (3) MSC 887/INS 6016 Science Discourse: Language, Literacy & Argumentation and (4) MED902 Integrative Project. She has also mentored numerous undergraduate students embarking on their educational research projects and the Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus.
Outside the university, she has been invited to give talks and conduct workshops to local schools, both primary and secondary. Internationally, she has participated in invited symposia in the United States and Europe. Closer to home, she was also invited to give talks and conduct lectures in universities in countries such as China, India and Indonesia.