ZALEHA ABDULLAH

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor MALAYSIA E-mail: zac@utm.my

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zaleha Abdullah or known as Dr. Zac has expertise in Visual Communication and Educational Technology. Her expertise covering these two different areas has greatly assisted the university in various branding efforts which require creative thinking in producing entertaining or educational materials to provide understanding and attract the interest of the masses. The content she produces takes in many forms, including media social postings, videos, photos, and infographics.  During her tenure as the UTM Director of Corporate Affairs (HEK), Dr. Zac together with the HEK team has worked to promote the UTM brand not only as a strong organization in engineering and technology but prospers the lives of the community and contributes to the country. Various production of promotional materials has been produced where she contributed ideas, wrote the video scripts, and developed branding strategies based on data analytics.  Please refer to the following link for some of the videos she has produced with the HEK team https://brand.utm.my/co-branding/, https://bit.ly/3lZCMrZ, https://bit.ly/2L9Cyl5, https://bit.ly/3qIlKBZ  Dr. Zac was also involved in the production of materials for corporate publishing, broadcasting and advertising on social media. She held responsibility to ensure that every material published in the local and  international media does not damage the image of the university. It was here that she was given the responsibility to lead the university’s crisis communication team, and collaboratively came up with various policies and guidelines to protect the university brand. Her expertise as a Creative Content Creator was also required while serving as a manager in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has trained university lecturers and school teachers to create creative lesson materials under the UTM-MIT BLOSSOMS project. The project aims to enrich STEM curriculums worldwide. UTM received recognition from the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE), and Malaysia through this project was also recognized as the best among 11 country partners, in all aspects. More information: https://blossoms.mit.edu/about_us/people  ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. I graduated with a PhD in Education (Educational Technology) from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom; Master in Design (Visual Communication) from the Monash University, Australia; and BA in Art & Design (Graphic Advertising) from the MARA University of Technology (UiTM), Malaysia. My research interests include online and distance learning, instructional design, creativity, visual communication, and leadership. I have been the principal investigator for seven research projects and I have over one hundred publications in the field. I began my career path in Higher Education with experience from different fields; in my case I had previously worked as a graphic designer before I joined the School of Education in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).