About me

Hi! I'm Law Yao Hua ('Yao Hua' is my first name), a Malaysian journalist in Kuala Lumpur.

I have been reporting on the environment, ecology, medicine, and public health since late 2013. Before that, I was an insect ecologist and had received my Ph.D. (Entomology) in 2010.

My first love is teaching, and I've been teaching in various capacities since I was 18 – primary school, high school, universities, prison, youth groups in temples, and journalist workshops/seminars.

Connect

I'm on LinkedIn.

Email: yhx.reporter@gmail.com ; x being the first letter of my family name.

My goals (for 2025 - 2028)

Study ways to fund and run a digital newsroom for journalists in Malaysia

My co-founder at Macaranga and I've tried to make reader revenue and grants the main income source, but we achieved only partial success. I'm keen to give reader...or user-revenue another go, but with a new platform. I'm looking at food journalism this time. Malaysians all love to eat, kan? And judging from our income levels and obesity* levels, I suspect we have some major issues to solve in food inequality and public health. As always, journalists never lack stories, just the money to write them.

*(Note added 18 Nov 2025) When I wrote this a couple of months ago, I believed obesity was a real physiological and public health issue. My readings and classes since have prompted me to requestion my perception. The use of body mass index (BMI) as a catch-all indicator of a person's health and the aggressive language against obesity have invited professional criticism both medical and social.

Build, fund, and run a digital food journalism newsroom for Malaysia

Exactly as it says.

Build and publish a public dataset of forest reserve changes in Malaysia

With dashboards and maps.

My interests

Happy to chat about and work on data journalism, mapping, and reporting for narrative non-fiction. Also anything that might help me better understand the landscape and forces affecting food and people in Malaysia, e.g., nutrition, economics, public health, culture, urban planning, farms and fisheries.