PROF. DR. YVONNE LIM AI LIAN

Professor Dr. Yvonne Lim Ai Lian is the Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International) at Universiti Malaya and a Senior Professor in the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine. She is also a member of the University Senate. A Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM), she co-chairs the APRU Asia Pacific Women in Leadership (APWiL) Programme and serves on the International Advisory Committee of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities.

Throughout her distinguished career, she has held several key leadership roles at both university and national levels, including Deputy Dean (Research) at the Faculty of Medicine, Director of the International Relations Office, and Associate Vice-Chancellor of Global Engagement at Universiti Malaya. She has also served as President of the Malaysian Society of Parasitology and Tropical Medicine and as a Council Member of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

Her research focuses on deciphering the intricate host-parasite-environment interactions that contribute to disease in indigenous and underserved communities, aiming to develop multi-targeted solutions. Additionally, she investigates the diversity of gut and skin microbiomes across populations spanning various socioeconomic and ecological landscapes, from traditional to industrialized societies.

For nearly three decades, she has dedicated her work to studying infectious diseases among the Orang Asli (indigenous) communities of Peninsular Malaysia, collaborating closely with Hospital Orang Asli Gombak. Her contributions to national policy, including the Orang Asli Development Policy (DPOA), reflect her deep commitment to community welfare.

Her collaboration with New York University led to a groundbreaking discovery, published in Science (2016), revealing how low levels of helminth (worm) infections promote the growth of probiotic gut microbiota. Her gut microbiome research has since expanded to studies among HIV and cancer patients. More recently, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA, she has deepened investigations into parasitic infections, gut microbiome dynamics, and the relationship between skin infections and the skin microbiome.

Her work is supported by numerous national and international grants, including the prestigious US NIH R01 grants. She was recently awarded another NIH R01 grant as the principal investigator. She has published over 250 peer-reviewed scientific articles, contributed to nine book chapters, and authored three books. As a dedicated mentor, she has supervised more than 40 postgraduate students to completion and hosted researchers through extensive collaborations with institutions in the US, UK, Australia, Germany, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore.

She has also held visiting research and academic positions at leading institutions, including the Scottish Parasite Diagnostic and Reference Laboratory in Glasgow, Scotland; the Department of Veterinary Science at the University of Melbourne, Australia; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA; and the Department of Molecular Parasitology and Tropical Diseases at Taipei Medical University, Taiwan.

She has earned numerous accolades, including the MSPTM Medal (2008) for outstanding young scientists, the Universiti Malaya Excellent Lecturer Award for Science Disciplines (2015), and the Top Research Scientists of Malaysia Award (2016). In 2017, she was inducted as a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia. She has been consistently recognized in Stanford University's list of the top 2% of scientists globally in her field.

In 2021, she was awarded the Fulbright Scholar Award (2021/2022) for a fellowship at the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases at NIAID, NIH, USA. Most recently, she received the prestigious Sandosham Gold Medal Award in 2024, the highest honour from the Malaysian Society of Parasitology and Tropical Medicine, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to parasitology and tropical medicine.

Deeply passionate about her work with the Orang Asli communities, she remains committed to inspiring and empowering her colleagues and students to reach their fullest potential.