Tan Sri Dato’ Philip Kuok Professorial Chair in Agricultural Science
Department of Agricultural and Food Science,
Faculty of Science,
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman,
Malaysia

Prof Peter Ooi was a “super-fresh” student who obtained his B Sc (Hons.) in 3 years rather than the usual 4 years from University of Malaya in 1973. He obtained his M. Sc. in 1979 while working with the Crop Protection Branch of the Jabatan Pertanian in fulfilment of his contract with the Federal Government of Malaysia. He became the Scientist in charge of Malaysia for the International Institute of Biological Control of the CAB International for nine years and completed his Ph D in 1988 following a 6 months appointment at the International Rice Research Institute IRRI) in 1988 and later a month’s management training at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in Manila. He joined the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and covered the 12 countries in Asia involved in the UN project on Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Starting with rice and based in Manila and Jakarta, he moved to be the Chief Technical Adviser (CTA) of a 12 million Euro project on cotton IPM and was based in Bangkok. He worked more than 11 years for FAO. Prior to his retirement from international duties he was the Asian Regional Director of the World Vegetable Center based in Bangkok. While in Bangkok, he was an adjunct lecturer at the Asian Institute of Technology. After 16 years working abroad to foster an ecological and agro-biodiversity approach to pest management, Prof. Peter returned home and taught at the Nanyang Technology Institute of Singapore. He was recruited by Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) to head the new Agriculture Department in 2011. Publications are a means of sharing his experiences and achievements with the scientific and agricultural communities and to date the total number of reports exceeded 230.