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Dr Nisha Mohd Rafiq, 32, is a Singaporean postdoctoral researcher at Yale University. She has been passionate about science even as a little girl. She even started Madrasah Wak Tanjong’s first Science Club when she was just fourteen years old.
While pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Biological and Physical Sciences, Dr Nisha was given the A*STAR Pre-graduate Scholarship and won multiple awards. She went on to become a valedictorian twice at the National University of Singapore (NUS) after completing her undergraduate and graduate studies.
When she was in NUS, the person who encouraged her to pursue a PhD programme in Mechanobiology was Paul Thomas Matsudaira, an American biologist who served as the head of the Department of Biological Sciences at NUS. “In my third year, he showed me a picture from when he was a technician in a lab to motivate me. That’s when I realised that certain people who rise in the field know your challenges as a young person.”
Dr Nisha says that she is blessed to have met excellent mentors at every stage of her journey. “When I was in Madrasah, the Mudir (principal), Almarhum Ustaz Muhammad Noor, told me, ‘Choose what you want to do.’ When I went on to polytechnic, university, and work, I had mentors who were good and supportive yet rigorous.”
She is currently researching brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease “The number of people having Alzheimer’s disease is so crazy. Singapore has a strong attraction for neuroscience-related diseases because of its ageing population. I want to translate my work into something that directly benefits others. My major goal is not to do basic science for pleasure or curiosity but science with an impact.”
When asked if she ever felt that science contradicts Islam, Dr Nisha replied that the more discoveries she makes, the more she believes in the religion and the existence of a higher being. “The cells in our body itself are the wonders of the world; they are a world of their own. I cannot imagine how this can be achieved by humans. I used to be very intrigued by physics so I was amazed that in Surah Yasin, it says that time is relative. So, when I was in Secondary school, my tutor would give me A-level sums to try because he knew I was interested, I think. That’s how I ended up learning about relativity when I was just in secondary two.”
She hopes that youths remain humble and know that someone will always know much more. “If you have it hard in your first few years, don’t be discouraged. It’s going to be hard. You need to know what you like and stay close to it. I wish I could tell myself as a youth back then that failures are important to mold you as a person. They should not be a setback at all.”
Photo Credits: muslim.sg
