Zaleha Kassim obtained her Ph.D. in Aquatic Biology in 2001 from University Putra Malaysia. She completed her Bachelor degree in Biology in 1996 after working for nine years as a trained high school teacher. She received her Diploma in Science and Education in 1983 from University Pertanian Malaysia.
She is one of the Malaysians in the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS), collaborating in zooplankton ecological research group with other members from Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan. She is also a member of the Malayan Nature Society, Asian Fisheries Society and Malaysian Soc
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iety for Applied Biology.
She frequently delivers talks to Fisheries Department of Malaysia (DoF) and Farmers Authority of Malaysia (LPP) on aquaculture practises and the impact on the environmental to natural habitat. Highlights from the media (e.g. The Star, Bernama, Utusan) of her innovation attracted documentary producers from local media such as RTM and TV3 to invite her to participate in their popular segments such as Anugerah Alam and Simfoni Alam. She won the best inventor for copepod culture using organic waste in a competition organized by WiPo, Kippo and MyIPO in 2011. She also received an award of recognition from the Ministry of Education in 2012 for the commercialisation effort of her research innovation, the copepod culture technique.She is now actively involved in research on management of marine protected area (MPA) specifically on management plan of marine park islands in Mersing water and inventory study of aquatic invertebrates for Tioman Island. Both of the marine park projects were awarded to her team for a year project until 2019 by the Marine Park Dept. With the grant she also involved herself with extension works to give advice and consultation on managing coastal activities and ecotourism sustainable manner. Her work on knowledge transfer program between university and community/industry is commendable as she had been granted KTP grant from Ministry of Higher Education for 4 times; project 1 between UMT and PPKJBS (2011-2012), project 2 between IIUM and FTSB sdn Bhd (2015-2016), project 3 between IIUM and PPKJBS (2016-2017) and project 4 between IIUM and community of Kg. Kongkong PPSMKK (2017-2018). She is also awarded a Prototype Research Grant Scheme (PRGS) recently (2018-2020) to develop a prototype F-Algae by the Ministry of Education and will be working to come up with a microalgae product for the benefit of aquaculture industry in Malaysia. She has just completed her FRGS on the Ecology and Feeding of Malaysian Horseshoe Crab and produced one master student along with 5 international scientific publications from the project. She continues to supervise postgraduate students under her field of expertise and actively involves in JSPS society, World Aquaculture Society (WAS) and Malaysia Nature Society (MNS). She is now working on her new FRGS project on the ecdysis process in Asian horseshoe crab (2019 - 2022). At the same time she devoted her time to impart knowledge and skills on aqauculture for the benefit of the orphanage of Permata Al-Insyirah Kg. Sg. Isap Kuantan, under her latest internal grant of IIUM KTPRIGS-SDG (2019-2022). She is also the Head of INHART, for Kuantan Campus where she frequently organised Halal awareness talk, hands-on training and research forum related to Halal and Toyyib subject matters.
