Former CML Research Associate Elson Ong awarded PhD at NUS

From left to right: Dr Elson Ong’25, Professor Stephen Girvin

The Centre for Maritime Law (CML) congratulates our former Research Associate, Elson Ong, on being conferred his PhD at the National University of Singapore on 11 July 2025. Dr Elson Ong ’25 completed his PhD under the supervision of Professor Stephen Girvin FRSA AFNI, Director of CML and MPA Professor of Maritime Law. His thesis topic was: ‘Digitalising Commercial Shipping: The Relevance of Trust’, and his thesis was examined by Professor Jason Chuah FRSA SFHEA and Professor Simone Lamont-Black.

Elson was CML’s Research Associate from 2017 to 2023, followed by a one-year affiliation as our Visiting Researcher in 2024. He obtained his LLB (Hons) and LLM (Maritime Law) degrees from the University of Southampton in 2013 and 2015, respectively. He was admitted to the Singapore Bar in 2016 and practised with RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP (now RHTLaw Asia LLP) before joining CML.

During his time at CML, he published journal articles and co-authored a book chapter on electronic bills of lading and blockchain technology with Professor Girvin, and also contributed to the CML-CMI Database project. He was a member of ITSC (Information Technology Standards Committee) and ISO/TC 307/WG 5 (Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies).

Elson is CML’s first PhD Alumnus.