Biography

Nai Rui Chng is based at the University of Glasgow. He is a Research Associate at the Institute of Health and Wellbeing, a member of the cross-college The Boyd Orr Centre for Population and Ecosystem Health, and the Scottish Centre for China Research. He is also an Affiliate Research Fellow in Human Rights at the College of Social Sciences.
He is a political sociologist working on the regulatory and contentious politics of access to public goods like water, health, and the environment. He is currently part of a multidisciplinary evaluation team tasked to assess a complex public health intervention programme in deprived communities in Glasgow. He has active interests in the politics of disease control in East and Southeast Asia, and also in the environmental politics of China.
At the European University Institute as a Max Weber Fellow, Nai Rui Chng worked with Donatella della Porta and the community of social movements and contentious politics researchers.
Nai Rui Chng has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His thesis, ‘Even flow: Privatising water and mobilising power in the Philippines’, investigates the politics of privatisation and contentious collective action in the water sector, and local politics in the Philippines and the developing world. At the LSE, he also earned an MRes. (merit) in Political Science and an MSc. (merit) in Political Sociology. He received his B.A. (first class honours with distinction) in Politics from the University of York.
Nai Rui Chng also has a background in advocacy and consultancy. He has worked for MPs in the Singapore Parliament and the British House of Commons. Previously active in Singapore’s civil society on migrant worker issues and human rights, he has also conducted research for international development agencies and local NGOs in Indonesia, the Philippines and the United Kingdom.