David Tan was Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) at NUS Law from January 2015 to June 2021. He holds a PhD from Melbourne Law School (2010), a LLM from Harvard (1999), and graduated with a LLB (First Class Honours)/BCom from the University of Melbourne (1995). He has taught courses at Melbourne Law School (Intellectual Property & Popular Culture; Constitutional Law) and University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law (Entertainment Law). David was formerly with the Singapore Administrative Service, serving as Director of Sports at Ministry of Community Development, Youth & Sports and Director of International Talent at Ministry of Manpower. He has also had work experience at McKinsey & Company and DBS Bank.
At NUS Law, David pioneered courses in Entertainment Law, Fashion Law, Freedom of Speech, and Privacy & Data Protection Law. His areas of research cover personality rights, copyright, trademarks, freedom of expression, constitutional law and tort law, and his articles have been cited on a number of occasions by the Singapore Court of Appeal and High Court.
David has published over 60 articles, comments, book chapters and review essays since joining NUS Law in 2008. In the area of law, he has published in a diverse range of journals such as the Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, Yale Journal of International Law, Sydney Law Review, Law Quarterly Review, Law & Literature, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, Media & Arts Law Review, Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, Torts Law Journal and Australian Intellectual Property Journal. His monograph — The Commercial Appropriation of Fame: A Cultural Analysis of the Right of Publicity & Passing Off — on celebrity personality rights was published by Cambridge University Press in hardback in 2017, and in paperback in 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_27X6UaExZQ&feature=youtu.be
David is also an accomplished fine art and fashion photographer having published a coffeetable book Visions of Beauty in association with Versace, and Tainted Perfection in collaboration with Cartier in Singapore, and has had over half a dozen solo exhibitions. His works have appeared in Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Time and The New Yorker.
