Gloria Lim

Gloria Lim BBM (1930 – 11 July 2022) was a Singaporean mycologist whose research focused on tropical fungi and who built up a fungal repository of regional samples. Lim was twice appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Singapore (now the National University of Singapore), the first woman to hold that position. After her retirement, she became the first Director of Singapore's National Institute of Education and helped it launch a university degree program. She served on the Public Service Commission as its first woman commissioner for 14 years, and then served as general manager of the Community Mediation Unit for 8 years.

Lim received numerous honours and awards for her contributions to science and to improving education in Singapore. She died on 11 July 2022.

Early life and education Gloria Lim was born in Singapore in 1930. While the girls school she attended did not teach sciences, she graduated from the University of Singapore with a BS in botany with first-class honours in 1954. She earned a Diploma in Education in 1956 and an MS in plant pathology in 1957 from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.

Lim began teaching at the Raffles Girls' School; she later was hired to teach at the University of Malaya and divided her time teaching at Raffles in the morning and botany at the university in the afternoons. She was awarded an Inter-University Council Fellowship which allowed her to attend the University of London. Lim earned her doctorate in 1961 and then attended the University of California, Berkeley, on a Fulbright Fellowship between 1966 and 1967, Her job was to develop the Institute of Education (IE) on a fully accredited university standard; when she retired in 1994, the program was offering undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs.

Other activities Between 2003 and 2011, Lim served as general manager of the Community Mediation Unit (CMU), a board designed to solve community disputes.

Awards and honours In 1993 Lim was honoured with the Bintang Bakti Masyarakat (Public Service Star) for her contributions to the PSC, which she continued to serve until 1996. Lim retired from NIE in 1994. In July 1999, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science from Loughborough University in England for her contributions to science and education in Singapore.

In 2005, Lim was honoured with the Distinguished Science Alumni Awards from the NUS

Selected works