LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

2019 winner of the L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Fellowship, Dr Lim Way Foong is determined to bring a ‘healthier light’ into the lives of everyone. Her ‘fall down seven times, get up eight’ story will inspire and move your heart.

- Lorraine Chai

“It was so unbelievable when I received the call from L’Oréal Malaysia. I was so excited and surprised! Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would stand out among the other 193 nominees, and be selected one of the three winners,” Dr Lim exclaims, still very much amazed by the news of her win. The L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Fellowship is a highly coveted award that seeks to celebrate the achievements of Malaysian women scientists. The prize includes grant money that will enable the winners to pursue their research projects.

In her research, Dr Lim studies the impact of replacing blue light – the light emitted by artificial lighting such as the light-emitting diode (LED) used in most indoor lighting as well as in electronic gadgets – with blue-free radiation lighting by using violet light. There have been many attempts to commercially market violet light as the white light that has less impact on human well-being, but its optimal emission wavelength remains unknown. By varying the composition of the light’s emissive layer in order to tune its wavelength, Dr Lim’s project – VioLEDs – aims to produce the optimum amount of violet light LEDs to be fabricated into white light.