JOHOR BAHRU, 1 November 2014 – A total of 5,590 Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) graduates received their scrolls at the 53rd UTM Convocation Ceremony held at Dewan Sultan Iskandar.
The graduates comprised 201 Doctors of Philosophy (PhD), 1,065 Master’s Degrees, 2,914 Bachelor’s Degrees, 2 Advanced Diplomas and 1,408 Diplomsa. Of this total, 402 were international graduates from 31 countries.
The Anugerah Pelajaran DiRaja Award recipients were Mohamad Redzuan Ahmad Jakil (Bachelor of Petroleum Engineering) and Quah Zhi Yong (Bachelor of Chemical Engineering).
UTM also created a historic event in this convocation when Dr. Hazzirah Izzati Mat Hassim emerged as the youngest Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) recipient in Malaysia as attested by the Malaysia Book of Records when she received her scroll at the age of 24 years and 2 months.
Ir. Syamsuri Yaakob from Telekom Malaysia Berhad and Chan Tze Leong from Proton Holdings became the first two PhD recipients from the UTM PhD Industry Programme while Rohani Embong was the first PhD graduate of UTM Language Academy. Rohani conducted a research on the artwork of Malaysia’s most famous cartoonist , Dato’ Muhammad Nor Khalid or better known as Lat in her thesis entitled ‘Linguistics and Visual Representations of Political Figures in Editorial Cartoons.’
UTM Pro-Chancellor, Dato’ Dr. Muhammad Ridzuan Salleh in his speech said as a Research University, UTM academicians must continue playing a significant role in carrying high impact research that benefits the nation in general and the state of Johor in particular.
Among the issues that need to be addressed are issues related to sustainable environment.  Hence, the university intends to establish an endowed chair in sustainable environment, which focuses on the following research areas: i) Sustainable environment and eco-tourism development of Endau Rompin, ii) Integrated river basin manegementr for Sungai Johor, and iii)  Sustainable urban waste management.

UTM welcomes involvement of the industry, groups and corporations,  institutions and private individuals who would like to contribute to enhancing research that focuses on environmental sustainability,  in ensuring that environmental issues can be addressed in a  more organised and systematic manner.