Lihanna is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences. She received her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree with a double major in Chemistry and Psychology from Washington University, St Louis. She then pursued her postgraduate studies in Psychology: Human Development in the University of Chicago, obtaining her Master’s degree in 1996 and her doctorate in 1998. She then worked in the Faculty of Education University of Malaya. While mainly teaching and doing research in early childhood education and educational psychology, she was also involved in research and consultancy related to various aspects of education. In 2008, she joined the International Islamic University Malaysia.
Besides the numerous research articles in both national and international journals, Lihanna has also co-edited 2 books on Malaysian adolescents. She also contributed book chapters related to developmental psychology and education. She has also written regularly in parenting magazines.
She is also a research consultant in the longitudinal nation-wide study on soft skills of Malaysian university students, commissioned by the Ministry of Education. She is also a consultant with the Examination Syndicate on Malaysian Educators’ Selection Inventory since 2007. She was also part of the research team on OECD’s indicators of education for Malaysia.
Her commitment to quality in education continues with her involvement as assessor for the Malaysian Qualification Agency in Psychology and Early Childhood Education. She has held administrative posts in the university that has allowed her to be more involved in enhancing the quality of education, such as the Director of Institutional Academic Quality Management. She conducts training on pedagogical approaches for various levels of education, and has appeared in magazines and television to discuss aspects of developmental psychology.