Prof Dr. Ts Norazah Mohd Saki: A Pride of Malaysia and Muslim Ummah
Dr. Syed Mehboob
Political and Economic Analyst
Leland Stanford University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford ( the eighth governor of California and then incumbent United States Senator representing California) in memory of their only child, Leland Jr. The university is organized around seven schools of study on an 8.180 acre ( 3,310 hectare campus, one of the largest in the nation. The university has 2,402 faculty members, providing quality education in 150 graduate fields of study. It has an endowment of US$ 40.8 billion and has a budget of US$ 8.9 billion with around 7,841 students. The university is associated with 94 billionaires, 58 Nobel laureates, 33 MacArthur Fellows, 29 Turing Award winners, as well as seven Wolf Foundation Prize recipients, two Supreme Court justices of the United States, and four Pulitzer Prize winners.
The Stanford/Elsevier Top 2% Scientists List is a prestigious database created by Prof. John Ioannidis and his team, highlighting the top 100,000+ most-cited researchers globally across 22 fields and 174 subfields. Updated annually, it ranks researchers based on standardized metrics (c-score), including h-index and citations, rather than publication count alone.
It is a great honor for Malaysia and for the whole ummah that Prof. Ts. Norazah Mohammad Suki has been included in Stanford University's list of the world’s 2% scientists. Prof Ts Norazah is a very highly talented, hardworking yet polite and down-to-earth lady. She is a researcher and professor at the University of Utara Malaysia (UUM) and the first Malaysian women who is ranked among the world’s top 2% of scientists for seven consecutive years, from 2019 to 2025. This list is scrutinized and shortlisted from nine million researchers worldwide. Of that number, only about 100,000 high-impact scientists are selected on a merit basis, which includes citations, H-index, international collaborations, and key authorship roles.
It is an honor for me, and for the News Lark, that we have shared this news with our Pakistani readers, and now, for the second time, I am writing about her. On Eid, she sent an Eid greeting message to me, and I told her that after Eid, I am going to write another article about her.
In an interview with a Malaysian newspaper, she said,” When I found out I had been listed for the seventh time, I was truly grateful. It is not only an acknowledgment of my hard work but also a legacy for UUM and Malaysia, showing that we can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with international scientists.”
Her achievement not only highlights her personal excellence but also strengthens Malaysia’s research profile on the global stage. More importantly, it serves as a symbol of the resilience of Malaysian women in academia — a field often dominated by men.
Norazah has been listed among the world’s top two per cent of scientists since the recognition was first introduced by Stanford University and Elsevier in 2019. Today, she ranks 167th globally in the field of business and management, and 5,173rd overall among the 100,000 high-impact scientists worldwide.
According to the Scopus database, she holds an H-index of 39, with more than 196 published articles and over 5,000 citations by researchers across the globe — an extraordinary achievement in the fields of social sciences and management, which generally record lower citation rates compared to the pure sciences.
Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to the older Web of Science in 20024. The H Index is a bibliometric indicator measuring a researcher’s productivity, impact, and citation.
An H-index of 39 means at least 39 of Dr. Norazah’s articles have been cited 39 times by other researchers. A great achievement and honor not only for Malaysia but for the whole Muslim Ummah. In reality, not everyone can reach a Scopus H-index of 30, let alone 39. It is a very high number, especially in social sciences and management, because these fields do not have as many researchers or as high citation rates as the pure sciences. This figure shows that her research is not only being published but also widely used and referenced by the international academic community. Inclusion in the world’s top two per cent of scientists does not depend solely on the number of publications, but on the quality and true impact of research.
There is no application, no nomination. Everything is based on verified, high-impact publication data. So, when someone’s name appears on that list, it is truly the result of years of hard work. So, Dr. Norazah’s magnificent achievement also reflects discipline, consistency, and a strong sense of curiosity as the keys to success.
To maintain consistency and continuity, she remained very active in conducting high-value research, writing, publishing, and collaborating internationally.
Born in Kluang, Johor, in 1977, Norazah is the second of three siblings. She grew up and received her early education in Jasin, Melaka, in a family environment that strongly emphasized discipline and education.
With a humble but respectable background, her mother, Azbah Semat, served as a special grade midwife at Melaka Hospital before retirement, while her late father, Mohd Suki Umbi, once served in the Royal Malaysian Navy before becoming a hostel warden at Institute Kemahiran Mara Jasin.
“My mother and late father were the pillars of my success. They would drive my sister and me — Associate Professor Ts Norbayah — to campus every day at Multimedia University (MMU) Melaka and later MMU Cyberjaya. They never tired of encouraging us to pursue knowledge to the highest level,” she shared with gratitude.
Her elder sister is currently serving at UUMKL, while their youngest sibling, Mohamad Syukri, is a trained chef who is self-employed.
A graduate of Institut Perdagangan Mara, Norazah went on to complete her bachelor’s degree at MMU in 2000. She then pursued her master’s and PhD in marketing and e-commerce at the same university, completing her studies in 2006 at the age of 29.
Over the past 25 years in academia, Norazah’s career has been one of dedication and perseverance, spanning multiple higher education institutions in Malaysia. She has served at MMU, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Universiti Industri Selangor, and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (Labuan International Campus) before joining UUM in 2018. That same year, she was honoured with the Malaysia’s Research Star Award (MRSA) — a prestigious recognition jointly presented by academic publisher Elsevier and the Ministry of Higher Education to Malaysian researchers whose international publications are of the highest quality.
Today, at the age of 48, Norazah is not only a professor but also serves as the Deputy Dean (Research, Innovation and Corporate Relations) at the Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business (OYAGSB), UUM — a testament to the discipline, focus, and passion that have propelled her to the pinnacle of academia. For Norazah, success in research is never the work of an individual alone — it is the result of a supportive university ecosystem and a dedicated team. Much of her work involves cross-country collaborations, and she consistently emphasizes the importance of being the lead author in high-impact publications.
Her contributions extend beyond her own achievements to nurturing her students’ success. Among the milestones she remembers most fondly is helping 105 undergraduate students publish Scopus-indexed articles — an extraordinary feat in the academic world.
This effort culminated in the 2017 publication of the book Handbook of Research on Leveraging Consumer Psychology for Effective Customer Engagement by IGI Global, which featured her undergraduate students as contributors.
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