From sex videos to fetishes: Scholars who made headlines for the wrong reasons

SINGAPORE - A scholarship holder with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) has been accused of trying to poison her laboratory mates at Stanford University.

Singaporean Ouyang Xiangyu, 27, has been charged with four counts of poisoning the drinking water of classmates at her graduate studies lab in 2014, and now faces trial in California.

Ouyang is the latest in a line of scholars who have made headlines for the wrong reasons:

1. Alvin Tan

The former ASEAN scholar was stripped of his scholarship after he posted sexually explicit photos and videos of his girlfriend and himself in an online blog in October 2012. The National University of Singapore (NUS) law student, who is a Malaysian, also earned himself a semester's suspension for the brazen acts.

Mr Tan did not complete his law studies.

2. Eng Kai Er

A*Star research scientist Dr Eng Kai Er was fined $2,000 for walking naked through Holland Village with a Swedish exchange student in 2009. Then a PhD student in infection biology at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, Dr Eng was given a warning but allowed to keep her scholarship.

Last year, she launched an arts grant to protest against her six-year scholarship bond with the agency.

3. Jonathan Wong

Former Ministry of Education scholar Jonathan Wong was caught with child-pornography videos in Britain in 2010 and had his scholarship revoked. The University of York undergraduate, who was awarded a Teaching Scholarship (Overseas) in 2006, pleaded guilty to the charges. He received a six-month sentence suspended for two years - meaning that he will not spend any time in jail unless he re-offends during that period. According to a medical report, Wong suffers from paedophilia.

4. Jonathan Peh Song Wee

Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) research engineer Jonathan Peh Song Wee was given a 12-month mandatory treatment order for stealing brassieres. A total of 228 bras, which Peh could not account for, were found in his house when he was arrested in 2013. Peh, who was awarded a DSTA scholarship in 2007 to do aerospace engineering, pleaded guilty to charges of criminal trespass, theft and fraudulent possession.

This article was first published on April 2, 2015.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.