Zubaidah Ya'cob held a PhD with Distinction in Biology (vectors) from the Universiti Malaya in September 2017. She continued her enthusiasm as a Senior Lecturer at the Higher Centre of Excellence (HICoE) Tropical Infectious Diseases Research & Education Centre (TIDREC) up to the present. She has published more than 40 journal papers in ISI-indexed publications and is an active reviewer for numerous high-quality journals, including publishers from Elsevier and Springer. She is a council member of the Entomological Society of Malaysia (ENTOMA), an active member of Malaysian Parasitology and Tropical Medicine (MSPTM), Public Health Entomology (PEKA), Malaysia Society for Environmental Epidemiology (MySEE) and International Society of Global Health (ISoGH).

Her main research interests are vectors (black flies, ticks and chiggers) and the epidemiology of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases. Her ongoing research is on vector biology, including the diversity of black flies, Chiggers and ticks and the epidemiology of their associated diseases. She is currently involved in several international projects funded by international funding bodies, including project One Health's approach to evaluating the role of oil palm in the spread of vector and zoonotic diseases funded by the Institute of Research & Development (French) and, integrated biosurveillance of wildlife pathogens (zoonotic) circulating in Malaysia funded by the Malaysia Ministry of Finance (MoF) with the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE). In 2020, she was awarded an international research grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Resource Council (BBSRC) to evaluate the novel diagnostic screening tool for detecting the Onchocerca parasites in Cameroon, Africa. She received a five-year training on blackfly taxonomy from the world-class expert Profesor Emeritus Dr Hiroyuki Takaoka. She was invited to the Taiwan Centre of Disease Control (CDC) in 2019 to assist black fly vector control program in Taiwan. Since 2010, she has been involved in black flies surveillance across Asian countries (i.e. Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and recently Taiwan) and contributed to novel findings in the discovery of 108 new black fly species to science. She is actively involved in the community engagement program, particularly with the school children and indigenous across Malaysia, aiming to share knowledge and raise awareness of vectors of disease agents.