The woman who was found dead with her father in a Sengkang HDB flat has been identified as a Cambridge University PhD holder.
According to Shin Min Daily News, friends and former classmates described her as a bright and talented individual who had studied and worked in several countries and was known for her intelligence and humility.
The tragic discovery was made on Monday afternoon (October 6) in a unit on the eighth floor of Block 324D Sengkang East Way. The father was found dead in the bedroom and had decomposed into a skeleton, while his daughter’s body was discovered near the main door in the living room. Police have since issued a public notice seeking the relatives of the 47-year-old woman, identified as Xu Na.
Shin Min Daily News managed to contact Xu Na’s former National University of Singapore (NUS) classmate, Xu Rong (45), who now runs a restaurant. He said he immediately recognised her when he saw her photo in the news.
“When I saw the police notice, I recognised her right away. I also checked with other classmates, and all of us felt sad to hear about what happened,” he said.
Xu Rong shared that he and Xu Na studied computer science together at NUS. In his memory, Xu Na was soft-spoken, polite and very intelligent.
“We were in the same undergraduate course. At first, she wasn’t very close to us, but she later joined the NUS Chinese Society, and that’s how we got to know her. She liked sports too. I once played table tennis with her,” he recalled.
After graduation, they went their separate ways. Xu Rong said the last time he saw her was about 20 years ago on the North East MRT Line. She told him then that she was living with her parents in Singapore and was working in France.
“She said she had been doing research work in France and also spent some time studying at Cambridge University,” he said.
According to her personal blog, Xu Na graduated from NUS with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2001, obtained her Master’s degree from NUS in 2003, and later completed her PhD at Cambridge University in 2008.
She worked as a research scientist at the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (INRIA) from 2009 to 2012.
Top student who excelled in Chinese writing
Xu Na was an outstanding student from her school days. She studied at Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC), where she excelled academically and even won a national Chinese composition writing competition.
Online records show she graduated from ACJC in 1997, where she was active in the Chinese Society and the table tennis club. Shin Min Daily News also spoke to a former classmate, who said he was not close to her during school but remembered her as an excellent student.
“She was a high achiever, so when the news broke, many of us in our alumni group were shocked,” he said.
Reports from Shin Min Daily News also revealed that Xu Na won first place in the National Chinese Essay Writing Competition (Junior College Category) in 1997.
