Hello!

I'm Brian.

I support efforts to enhance Singapore's international organisation and family office ecosystems.

Previously, I helped leaders make greater impact through systems thinking, human-centred design approaches, and futures.

I am also a classicist, trained at Oxford and Cambridge.

Find me on Linkedin here or get in touch: briantheng[at]gmail.com.

Classics Research

Harmonious Intrusion: Mankind and Nature in Statius' Silvae 1.3

Classical Quarterly (Forthcoming)

Finding the Social Life of Rural Non-Elites in Roman Italy

Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal 4 (2021)

My academic interests lie at the intersection of society and the economy of ancient Rome. I have a BA (Congratulatory First Class) from the University of Oxford, and a MPhil (Distinction) from the University of Cambridge.

My peer-reviewed articles utilise a broad range of evidence, from the literary to the archaeological, to present new ways of thinking about social relations during the Roman Empire.

Classics and the Modern World

Coldplay, Achilles, Spiderman

Coldplay's Something Just Like This brings to life heroism in ancient epic & modern comics

Perfume and Power

Killing Eve's Villanelle wants to smell like a centurion; what role did it play in Rome?

Epic Rap, Rapping Epic

What do Kanye, Chance, and Alaka have to do with ancient epic poetry?

My First Supper at Pompeii

A review of the Ashmolean's 2019 exhibition, Last Supper in Pompeii

Other Publications

Migrant Workers Colabs: Convening and Empowering the Ecosystem

In: Mathew, M. and Tay, M. (Eds.) (2021) Immigrant Integration in Contemporary Singapore (Singapore: World Scientific Press)

Based on work at the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre's Colabs initiative, I co-authored a chapter on a collaborative solutioning approach to building ecosystem understanding and responses to migrant worker-related issues.

Photos and Digital Art