Siti Zubaidah Ismail's field of expertise is Islamic criminal law and criminal justice. She graduated with Bachelor of Shariah from University of Malaya, Master of Comparative Laws from IIUM, LL.M from Birmingham University and PhD (Malaya). Her main research interest  is on the Islamic law and criminal justice in contemporary Muslim countries, particularly in Southeast Asia. She also focuses on the application of Islamic criminal law In the society and the development of Islamic criminal law implementation in Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Her current research is on the intersection between islamic punishment and human rights and the potential of diyat as an alternative to death penalty and also its applicability as a quantum of insurance for road traffic accident in Malaysia. She is also active in research relating to the interaction of Islamic law in society relating to new-Muslim reverts, inter-religious marriage and freedom of religion. She was Visiting Fellow at Asian Law Institute, National University of Singapore in 2010, Visiting Scholar at Faculty of Law Universitas Indonesia in 2016, Visiting Lecturer at UNISSA, Brunei, Visiting Fellow at IAIS in 2022 and Visiting Scholar at Law Faculty, Yildirim Beyazit University, Ankara Turkey in 2025. She was one of the recipients for AUA Scholars Award 2019 and Universitas Indonesia's UI-Resolv Visiting Scholar Awards 2016. From 2023-2024 she was Honorary Fellow at