Rauzah Binti Hashim

Biography

Prof. Rauzah Hashim has come a long way since she developed an interest in computational science. “Strange as it may seem, prior to 1990, computational science was quite unheard of in Malaysia”, but this did not deter her from taking on this research challenge after graduating from the University of Southampton in liquid crystal modelling, making her a pioneer in this field in Malaysia. One of the major difficulties she faced then was a lack of general facilities in computing. Unconventionally, she rectified this by setting up an Internet facility in her department in 1992 (the kimia network with over 70 nodes), allowing her to be connected to any fast computers and fellow theoreticians worldwide. It was 4 years ahead of the campus wide network. From 1990, for 10 years, Rauzah conducted seminars and workshops to popularize the computational science in Malaysia. Subsequently many HPC centers reflecting much of her early ideas were established, including MIMOS HPC (2003). She was a member of the University of Malaya Campus Network Technical Committee, the MIMOS GRID Initiative as well as a member of the ICS-UNIDO Expert Group for the Combinatorial Chemistry and Related Sciences. She won numerous grants locally and abroad. In 2002, she was lead the MOSTI top-down strategic program “Glycolipid Science and Technology”, leading 4 institutions. This project developed and synthesized the branched-chain glycosides which won many awards including the Gold Medal and Special Award from Taiwan at the ITEX Geneva 2005. She also leads another major grant, the high impact research grant on the Fundamental Science of Self-Assembly (2011-2016). With the motto of “the future is now!”, Rauzah and her collaborators have contributed actively to high impact publications through the HIR MoHE funding.

Research Interest

Computational Science (Education Software, Science Courseware, Science Content) Theoretical Chemistry (Statistical Mechanics, Computer Simulations, Molecular Modeling) Self-Assemblies and Self-Organised Systems (Liquid Crystals, Thermotropic, Lyotropic, Biaxial Phase) Bio-Compatible Materials (Glycolipids, Liquid Crystals, Liposomes)