Institution news
The IMechE Malaysia Branch is pleased to announced that Ir. Dr. Hoo Choon Lih is the Best Young Member winner for 2021.
Upholding his impact statement as an Education Transformer, Ir. Dr. Hoo Choon Lih is passionate about building an innovative community through learning & teaching, research, and outreach activities. He is currently the programme director of studies of the Mechanical Engineering programme at Heriot-Watt University Malaysia and his innovative learning and teaching were recognised when receiving awards on different occasions. Not only does he mentor students for innovation/entrepreneurship excellence, but he himself also "lead by example" by winning the sustainable award in an innovation design challenge.
As the IMechE YMS 2020/21 committee, he organised the first IMechE YMS Malaysia Design Competition. The event gathered brilliant innovations and introduced industrial mentoring in the prototype’s development. He secured the IMechE Schools & Clubs Engineering Challenge Award to run a STEM design competition for high school students, showcasing ideas in addressing SDGs for green cities development in collaboration with the local authority and IMechE YMS Singapore. As the treasurer of the IMechE SEAR YM Taskforce, he led the first IMechE SEAR Townhall event working closely with the IMechE YMS/representatives and more than 20 student affiliates across SEAR, the Townhall reached out to around 200 members from different SEAR countries to discuss the new normal engineering practices, industrial-academics collaboration, and promote projects/activities collaboration.
During the time of Covid 19 pandemic lockdown, the student chapters in Malaysia continued to organise their events virtually and promote the Institution continuously. These could not have been achieved without the efforts and contributions from various Academic Liaison Officers. The IMechE Malaysia Branch is pleased to announce the winners for the Best Academic Liaison Officer for 2021. They are Associate. Professor Ts. Dr. Meenaloshini Satgunam from Universiti Tenaga Nasional Student Chapter and Associate. Professor. Ts. Dr.-Ing. Shahrul Azam Abdullah from Universiti Teknologi Mara.
Associate Professor Ts. Dr. Meenaloshini Satgunam graduated from Western Michigan University, USA in 1999. She went on further to pursue her MSc in Manufacturing System Engineering (UPM) and Ph.D in Engineering in UNITEN. Currently she is the Head of Unit for Student and Staff Affairs in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN). Besides this she is also the Head of Scanning Electron Microscopy Lab, UNITEN an ISO 17025 certified lab. In March 2020, she was appointed as the Academic Liaison Officer (ALO) for the IMechE Student Chapter, UNITEN. Under her guidance, the Student Chapter won the “Best Student Chapter Award” for year 2020/2021.
Associate. Professor. Ts. Dr.-Ing. Shahrul Azam Abdullah completed his PhD (Engineering), Technische Universität Clausthal, GERMANY, MSc (Materials Engineering), Universiti Sains Malaysia, MALAYSIA and BEng (Hons.) (Mechanical and Materials Engineering), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, MALAYSIA. He always encourages and motivates his students to get involved in activities beyond the classrooms, under his guidance, the student chapter took on every challenge as an opportunity to succeed. The students shifted to using virtual platforms to organise and deliver many virtual events. Among the events were virtual industrial visits, IMechE Day, networking with other student chapters, virtual campus visits and participating in cross border competitions.