About Me
I was born Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and I was raised all over. From the age of 10, I moved to Geneva, Switzerland where I completed much of my early schooling. I moved to Singapore in the middle of the last two years of high school, where I completed my International Baccalaureate Diploma.
I pursued my undergraduate studies in Biomedical Science at Imperial College, London, before returning to Malaysia to join the then newly established think tank Khazanah Research Institute (KRI), as a public policy researcher. After about a year, I decided I needed to deepen my knowledge in public health, so I went back to Imperial and earned my Master of Public Health (MPH), specializing in Global Health.
After getting my MPH, I continued working as a public policy researcher at KRI, this time expanding my field of research to different areas of social policy, from social protection, gender inequality, digital governance and of course, public health. The common thread throughout all these issues, for me, was addressing structural causes of social inequalities through population-level interventions.
When Covid-19 hit, I was seconded to the Office of the Prime Minister’s Special Advisor on Public Health as a research officer. In this position, I got to work on long-term health system reform at a different level, in addition to working on immediate pandemic response for Malaysia. I was simultaneously spearheading the work on public health policy research at KRI, as it was becoming increasingly evident that public health was a growing, pressing issue for Malaysia.
After seven years at KRI, I then joined the ASEAN Research Center, part of the Asian School of Business (ASB) as a Senior Research Associate. It was my first taste of being a part of academia, and I was quickly inspired to explore it further. Not long after, I found myself back in Switzerland, this time at the #PopHealthLab, University of Fribourg, where I’m currently completing my PhD, in a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Between November 2025 to April 2026, I was a visiting researcher at the Life Course Centre, based at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
Throughout these experiences, I have been fortunate to work on meaningful projects and to cross paths with inspiring people. What continues to drive my research and give it purpose is the conviction that knowledge should contribute to building a more just and equitable society.
If you’re interested in a full CV, please drop me an email at nazihah.noor@proton.me or via the Contact page.