Research scientist on the ground with Halimah Yacob

Dr Ismail Muhamad Hanif. Dr Ismail, 35, was seen mingling with Bukit Batok East residents on Sunday morning. -- FILE PHOTO: NUS ALUMNI OFFICE
Dr Ismail Muhamad Hanif. Dr Ismail, 35, was seen mingling with Bukit Batok East residents on Sunday morning. -- FILE PHOTO: NUS ALUMNI OFFICE

Research scientist Dr Ismail Muhamad Hanif, 35, was seen mingling with Bukit Batok East residents on Sunday morning as Jurong GRC MP Madam Halimah Yacob took Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Lawrence Wong on a walkabout around shops in the area.

Dr Ismail, who is married, has been a member of the Tampines West Citizens' Consultative Committee (CCC) since 2009 and had helped out in the last general elections.

Madam Halimah told reporters that she had met Dr Ismail at a community event and invited him to volunteer in her ward.

She declined to say if he was a potential PAP candidate for the next polls, only that he was part of Bukit Batok East's Volunteer Induction Programme, which was started in 2010.

This is a programme to give interested volunteers a chance to help out at grassroots events and get to know the estate's residents and issues. It grooms them to become potential grassroots leaders.

Dr Ismail was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Medical School and studied cancer biology. Before that, he did his doctorate at the National University of Singapore Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering.

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