Magaret Sivapragasam acquired her BSc (Hons) Biotechnology from the Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology, Malaysia (2008). During that period, she had interned at the Veterinary Research Institute Malaysia where she joined a team to develop vaccines for the Newcastle Disease Virus. She was then awarded the Tiger Woods Foundation Award for excellence in writing, being the sole recipient from Malaysia.
Upon completing her PhD with distinction, she joined the Centre of Research in Ionic Liquids (CORIL) under the wing of PETRONAS University of Technology as a postdoctoral research scientist. Here, she focuses on employing Ionic Liquids as a dye removal system and oil dispersant while studying their ecotoxicity profiles. One of her projects includes the removal of dye from industrial wastewater from the “batik” dyeing industry in Malaysia where she was won several awards which includes Stage 2 of the Shell Ideas 360 Innovators Challenge and the Honorable Mention by Yale University Green Chemistry Challenge. She aims to curb the issue of pollution in small villages which is a rampant issue in her country. In 2017, she was awarded the prestigious Science Finder CAS Future Leader by the American Chemical Society. She was recently featured on “Science and She” a social media campaign initiated by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA) and its network of Biotechnology Information Centres worldwide. She has represented Malaysia as a young scientist in many international conferences speaking on her research in Ionic Liquids.
Her passion includes science communication where she has published several articles in ACS Axial, MDPI, The Petri Dish and many others. Being an active ACS Malaysian Chapter member, she often gives talks to encourage the usage of social media to disseminate scientific information. In her university, she organizes monthly talk sessions on science communication. Being an advocate for female scientists in Malaysia, she works towards abolishing stereotypes towards female scientist and started a trend on Twitter #scientistscanwearmakeup
