Ms. Seng is a PhD candidate of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS and the former Dean of the Department of Archaeology, Royal University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh. She is trained in field archaeology and Southeast Asian art history. In her pre-graduate career, she developed world-leading expertise in early Southeast Asian metallurgy and metal conservation. She has published in this area, with a focus on gold adornment in early first millennium settlements in southern Cambodia. Her doctoral work draws from exploration of adornment in metalwork to examine representation of textile adornment in early second millennium Angkorian settings. She co-founded a site museum at one of the key settlement sites. She is also co-editor of Pratu. With Professor Thompson she has joined the International Restitution Team led by the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. She continues as a civil servant such that on completion of the PhD, she will return to a ministerial post overseeing the nexus of cultural heritage, conservation and higher education.  

As an Academic Project Team Member, Ms. Seng will co-lead CO-OP Year 3 in Cambodia. She is looking forward to bringing her archaeological, art historical and ethnographic knowledge on Southeast Asian prehistoric materials and Angkorian adornment – jewellery and textiles –  to impact restitution work; and vice-versa to learning more about restitution itself and how it is embedded in local cultures.