Wan Alwi, Sharifah Rafidah is a Malaysian senior Professor at the Department of Chemical engineering of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. She was born on October 10, 1981, in Malaysia.

Sharifah is from Kuching, Malaysia. She went to MARA College Banting in 1998 - 2000, where she received International Baccalaureate Diploma. Sharifah holds Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering from The University of Manchester and Doctoral Degree in Chemical Engineering from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Sharifah received her Ph.D. at the age of 26 from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), making her one of the two youngest Ph.D. holders in Malaysia at that time. For her Ph.D., Malaysian researcher Sharifah Rafidah Binti Wan Alwi conducted research on the cost-effective reduction of water consumption by means of a specific water network design. She did this work at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), where she currently works as a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering. Specifically, Wan Alwi proposed water minimization strategies for the university mosque, which resulted in savings of up to 90 percent. Wan Alwi has research expertise in a wide variety of areas and has won numerous grants and sponsorships as well as awards for her work, which she has presented at several international conferences. She has been involved in seven consulting projects and has been active as a marketing and planning development officer in two commercialization grants.

Assoc Professor Dr. Sharifah Rafidah Wan Alwi is the Director of Process Systems Engineering Centre (PROSPECT) of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Sharifah has been extensively involved in 28 research projects (worth RM2.4Million), 18 industrial based projects for various companies and government agencies and has trained engineers from more than 100 companies in the field of energy and water minimisation. She specializes in process systems engineering with emphasis on Resource conservation. She has more than 140 publications consisting of refereed journals (60), one book, Scopus-indexed conference papers (15), fifty-nine refereed conference proceeding, four magazine articles, four book chapters and five monographs. The 2012 Elsevier’s Scival Spotlight has ranked her in the fifth place among the list of global experts under the category of Distinguished Competency of optimization, cost, and water.

2012-Current Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, UTM

2011-Current Director, Process System Engineering Centre (PROSPECT), PTJ Energy Manager

Faculty of Chemical Engineering Academic Advisor, Batch 2011/12, Department of

Chemical Engineering, UTM

2007-2012 Senior Lecturer, Department of Chemical Engineering, UTM Consultancy and

Training Manager, Process System Engineering Centre (PROSPECT) Webmaster

Department, Postgraduate, and PROSPECT, UTM. Graduate Study Coordinator

Department of Chemical Engineering, UTM Academic Advisor, Batch 2007/08,

Department of Chemical Engineering, UTM Committee of International Summer

Course, School of Graduate Studies, UTM

2004-2007 Ph.D. Student, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

2004-2007 Assistant Lecturer/Tutor, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, UTM.

2003-2004 Research Assistant, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, UTM

(Dec-Jun)

2003 Substitute Teacher, Kolej Dato Patinggi Abang Haji Abdillah, Sarawak

(Oct-Dec)

2000-2003 BEng Student, UMIST, Manchester.

Sharifah Rafidah Wan Alwi was awarded the Maal Hijrah 2008 (New Year of 2008) Award – Glorious Achievement by the Sarawak state government and the Excellent Service Award by UTM. Her Ph.D. work on water minimisation has won the 2008 Prince Sultan Abdul Aziz International Water Award, Urban Water Demand Management Category. She also won the Green Talents 2009 award from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany) for her excellence in environmental research and was also among the five shortlisted candidates for IChemE Young Engineer Award 2009. In 2011, she was awarded Highly Commended Sir Frederick Warner Prize 2011 from IChemE UK. She was also selected as one of the finalists for Research Award - Tokoh Penyelidik (Researcher Icon) UTM 2010 and Malaysia National Young Scientist Award 2012. In 2013, she was awarded “Computers and Chemical Engineering most downloaded paper(2013)”. Just recently, she was awarded the ASEAN Young Scientist and Technologist Award (AYSTA2014) and PhosAgro/UNESCO/IUPAC Research Grant in Green Chemistry 2014.