Streamed away from the classes that led to biology in Singapore's school system, and rejected twice by local universities after military service, Joel Tan arrived at the University of Toronto with mostly Cs and Ds — and had applied to only one school abroad, because it was the top university in Canada.
At U of T, he finally took his first biology class. He earned a BSc in 2014 as a member of University College and an MSc in 2019 from the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, spending three years at the U of T-affiliated Hospital for Sick Children along the way.
Talent is everywhere; opportunity is not.Joel Tan
That line, from his Harvard Medical School graduation speech in May, went viral through Singapore media — more than 25,000 YouTube views and a note from a Singapore cabinet minister. Tan called himself "Exhibit A" for what opportunity can do.
He earned his PhD in biological and biomedical sciences from Harvard, where he named a group of bacterial defence systems Hailong, after a Chinese ocean dragon. His father battled cancer in Tan's childhood and now has Alzheimer's — a throughline, for Tan, in why he studies disease. He was photographed at his Harvard graduation with his husband, Brian Fanning.
Now a 2026 Schmidt Science Fellow and a University College alumni mentor, Tan plans to apply machine learning to neurodegeneration research — carrying forward the opportunity a single acceptance letter gave him.
Reported from U of T took a chance on Joel Tan – and changed his life, by Peter Boisseau (U of T Alumni News, August 12, 2026).
More from the original reporting: alumni.utoronto.ca/news/u-t-took-chance-joel-tan-and-changed-his-life