Short Bio
I was born and raised in Sarawak in the heart of the Malaysian side of Borneo. Upon obtaining my undergraduate degree in Microbiology from University of Arkansas, United States of America, I spent 10 years in Sarawak working with a local research institute at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). The projects that I was involved in at UNIMAS include the surveillance and outbreak response of hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) as well as other endemic viral diseases such as Japanese encephalitis, dengue and adenovirus in Sarawak. After completing a Master of Science in Medical Biotechnology from UNIMAS, I worked for a Wellcome Trust funded project which investigated the transmission of enterovirus 71 (EV71), a major causative agent for large HFMD outbreaks, in the Asia-Pacific region. While in UNIMAS, I became part of the Global Outbreak Response and Alert Network (GOARN) coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) where she served as a consultant in WHO missions such as the post-tsunami operation in Aceh, Sumatra in January 2005 and the H1N1 2009 pandemic at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and at the Western Africa WHO Regional Office in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. I completed by PhD in molecular microbiology from Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Australia. I am currently working as a senior lecturer and conducting research on melioidosis. I am also a certified biorisk officer trained under the Malaysian Biosafety Officer Training (MABOT) and I hold a biorisk management certified under the International Federation of Biosafety Associations (IFBA). I am actively involved in the training and biosafety advocacy work in collaboration with a few agencies within and out of the country.