Zuruzi Abu Samah is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Alfaisal University and serves the department as its chair since September 2019. He teaches engineering undergraduates fundamental courses, such as Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanics of Materials I, as well as advanced undergraduate courses required of students studying mechanical engineering such as Dynamics and Corrosion Engineering. His current research projects are in materials development and their applications, and in engineering education. He holds three US patents and named on two other US patent applications. He has published in reputable journals such as Applied Physics Letters, RSC Advances and also delivered keynote speeches in materials and in engineering education.

Previously, Professor Zuruzi taught at the Mechanical Engineering Programme Area of Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB). At UTB, he contributed through offering new undergraduate courses such as Corrosion Engineering, led the programme area to initiate a master by coursework program in which he developed and taught new courses such as Surface and Interface Engineering, and Materials Failure Analysis. He received the Special Mention in UTB Excellence Teaching Award (2016).

Professor Zuruzi had worked in research and development in an industrial setting. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Agilent Laboratories (US) and later as a senior engineer at Intel (US). He also worked at the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), an institute under Agency for Science technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore and developed nickel-alloy silicide materials and solders technologies for microelectronic industries prior to his doctoral studies.

Professor Zuruzi is an experienced educator and administrator. As chair of mechanical engineering department, he initiated a track and minor pathways to enable mechanical engineering students to tailor their studies during junior and senior years. He also proposed new courses such as Corrosion Engineering, and Product Design and Development to widen the choice of electives. He also led the department to achieve ABET accreditation. At UTB, he was appointed deputy dean of Graduate Studies and Research Office in July 2015 and as Assistant Vice Chancellor (Research) in July 2017. As AVC(R), he was directly responsible for all graduate studies and research matters. He assisted UTB's Vice-Chancellor to plan and implement new initiatives such as UTB Scholarship programme to attract high caliber students. In addition, he facilitated collaboration between academic units and research centres under his purview with international agencies which resulted in international grants and student placements in international universities. He helped increase graduate student enrolment and developed UTB's 5-year research plan. In 2016, he was selected by The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) for the Emerging Leaders Alliance Program. He was nominated by Engineering Accreditation Board (Singapore) and won the Outstanding Volunteer Award from The Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES) (2014) for contributions to accreditation activities in Singapore. 

A graduate of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Professor Zuruzi received his bachelors and honours degrees in materials engineering. During his undergraduate studies he worked on diffusion bonding of Al 6061 for his honours thesis, the results of which were published as two papers in Materials Science and Engineering: A; an Elsevier journal. Professor Zuruzi then earned his doctoral degree at the Materials department, University of California, Santa Barbara.  His doctoral research was supervised by Professor Noel Charles MacDonald NAE and resulted in a method to integrate nanostructured titania into microsystems (US patent 7,718,552). He won the Materials Research Society (MRS) graduate student award (silver) in Fall 2004.

Education

• BASc (Materials Engineering) with merit, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (1996)
• BASc (Materials Engineering) Honours, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (1997)
• PhD (Materials), University of Califonia, Santa Barbara (2005)
• Certificate in Teaching and Learning (Higher Education), Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore (2011) 

Honours

• Graduate Research Assistantship, University of California (2000) 
• Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore (A*STAR) International Fellowship (2002)
• Materials Research Society (USA) Graduate Student Award (Silver) (2004)
• Agilent Labs Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2005)
• Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES) Outstanding Volunteer Award (2014)
• Emerging Leaders Alliance Program, The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS) (2016)