Dr Timothy Tan obtained his B.Eng. and Ph.D in Chemical Engineering in 2000 and 2004 respectively from the University of New South Wales, Australia. After which, he joined Institute of BioEngineering and Nanotechnology, A*STAR Singapore, as a postdoctoral fellow for 2 years, and moved on to become an Assistant Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was promoted to Associate Professor (with tenure) in Feb 2012. He concurrently holds the appointments of Associate Chair of Academic and Director of outreach in the School.

His main research interests are nanostructure tailoring and tuning for photo-driven energy harvesting and novel materials for nanomedicine. He has successfully attracted well over S$3M from various grant agencies, such as Singapore National Research Foundation, ASTAR-NHGNTU Skin Research Grant, Industry-led BCA Sustainable Construction Capability Development Fund, Singapore Ministry of Education AcRF Tier 1 & 2, Singapore EDB GSK Trust Fund, A*STAR PSF and NTU Proof-of-Concept grants. He has 3 patents, edited a book, published 4 book chapters and more than 70 original papers, which can be found in Advanced Materials, Advanced Healthcare Materials, Nano Letters, Nature Protocol, Chemistry of Materials, Chemical Communications, Journal of Materials Chemistry and others.