Rubaina is a current PhD student within the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She is also pursuing a collaborative specialization in Engineering Education. She received a M. Sc. Degree in Computer Control and Automation from the Nanyang Technology University in Singapore in 2008. She went on to work for an MIT research institute in Singapore right after. She spent the next four years in developing navigation technologies for underwater robotics that were used to model and predict environmental issues in the coastal regions of Singapore.
As always being interested in the education aspect of engineering, this led her to take up a position as a lecturer in Singapore Polytechnic. She spent the next five years in developing interdisciplinary engineering courses, designing activities to promote engagement and motivation in the classroom and supervise students in their final year projects mainly in robotics. Her current research interest lies at the intersection of engineering education, learning communities, and identity formation.