Biodata

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zalina Shari is the Deputy Dean of Academic and Student Affair & Alumni at the Faculty of Design and Architecture, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). She served as the Head of Architecture Department from 2019-2020. She received her PhD in Architecture (specialising in building sustainability assessment) in 2011 from the University of Adelaide, South Australia. With this expertise, she has taught sustainability-related courses for the Bachelor of Science in Architecture and the Master of Architecture programmes at UPM. Zalina also shares her knowledge and expertise on sustainability issues and different Green building rating tools with government and non-government agencies and at educational events and programmes. 

She has supervised 9 MSc. and 12 PhD students in the area of green/sustainable design and planning, 11 of whom have completed (5 MSc. as the main supervisor; 3 PhD and 3 MSc. as co-supervisor). To date, she has published 3 edited books, 16 book chapters and 60 journal, conference, magazine and newspaper articles related to green building and sustainability in the built environment. Since 2015, she has served as an author and Malaysia correspondent for FuturArc: The Voice of Green Architecture in Asia-Pacific, an international professional magazine based in Singapore.

She was the Chairman of three national sustainable building-related conferences in 2012, 2015 and 2018 and one international conference in 2018. She served as the Editor of Alam Cipta International Journal of Sustainable Tropical Design Research and Practice for 8 years (2013-2021). Currently, she is a member of the editorial board for the Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (PJSSH), New Design Ideas (NDI), International Journal of Built Environment and Sustainability (IJBES), Horizon Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (JHSS) as well as a member of the editorial review board for Smart and Sustainable Built Environment Journal (SASBE). 

She served as a board member of the Malaysia Green Building Council for 5 years (2014-2018) and chaired the Education and Research Committee. For her academic achievements, she was awarded the "Excellent Service Awards" in 2004, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2019-2022; "The Best Academician for the Category of Teaching and Learning" (faculty level) in 2016 and 2017; and "Vice-Chancellor Fellowship Award for Excellent Educator Category" (university level) in 2017. She was nominated by UPM as one of the candidates for the "National Academic Award 2019 for Teaching Category," the highest recognition for Malaysian scholars sponsored by the Ministry of Education Malaysia.