Normi Mohd Yahaya

Dr. Normi Mohd Yahaya was the first Malaysian to earn a PhD at the age of 27 from Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Saitama, Japan and Universiti Sains Malaysia under RIKEN-USM Asia Joint Graduate School Program. She specialized in creating evolved enzymes for biodegradable plastics production in microbes in RIKEN’s Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Yoshiharu Doi.

Love to seek and try new frontiers in science, she later became the first Malaysian to embark on protein NMR research during her postdoctoral experience in Institut Polytechnique de Lorraine, Nancy University, France in 2008. Having specializations in protein engineering and NMR structural biology, her current research interests involve fundamental research of investigating the functions, structures and potentials of hypothetical proteins in microbes. She previously worked in the School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia as a senior lecturer for 5 years from 2006-2011 and subsequently joined the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Universiti Putra Malaysia in year 2012.