Dr. Siti Salina Sarkawi is a senior research officer attached to the Innovation and Elastomer Technology Unit under the Technology and Engineering Division of the Malaysian Rubber Board (MRB). She joined MRB in 2000 and holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, US as well as an MSc. in Polymer Material Science from UMIST, UK. She obtained her PhD from Twente University, the Netherlands in 2013 and published a thesis entitled ‘Nano-Reinforcement of Tire Rubber: Silica Technology for Natural Rubber’. She has been involved with various aspects of material sciences and rubber technology, particularly in areas of mixing and compounding, rubber formulation, compound design, rubber analysis and processing technologies. She is actively involved in consultancy works on evaluation of new materials and additives for rubber and compound development, giving technical advisory services to the industry and related government agencies as well as lecturing on topics related to rubber and tyre technology. Her research interests and expertise include silica technology, green tyre, epoxidised natural rubber, deproteinised natural rubber, bio-oils, bio-fillers, nano-fillers and graphene.
Dr Fatimah Rubaizah Mohd Rasdi is currently heading the Advancement and Innovation of Specialty Materials Unit under the Technology and Engineering Division in Malaysian Rubber Board. She holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Hons) from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and obtained her PhD from Newcastle University, United Kingdom in 2014. Her thesis was entitled ‘Continuous Screening using Mesoscale Oscillatory Baffled Reactor’. She later graduated with Masters of Business Administration in 2020 from UNISEL, Malaysia. Her research interests and expertise include production and processing of specialty rubber materials, especially epoxidised natural rubber and deprotenised natural rubber. She is also actively involved in standardsdevelopment at both the local and international levels. She has presented papers at national and international conferences on topics related to process intensification and specialty rubbers coupled with publications various journal.
