Professor Ir Ts Dr Mohd Zainal Abidin is a professor at the Faculty of Engineering in Universiti Putra Malaysia, and a Strategic Hire Professor at the Institute of Power Engineering (IPE) in Universiti Tenaga National (UNITEN). He is an IEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Distinguished Lecturer specialising in the field of lightning and high voltage engineering. This recognition is given to renowned engineers who have been working in a selected field for a long time. He has supervised 22 PhD and 42 MSc students and currently supervises 42 postgraduate students (35PhD and 7MSc) in the research of high voltage engineering, lightning protection, electromagnetic compatibility, and power system transients. He has published more than 350 technical papers of high impact journals and proceedings with over 2200 citations. To date, his H-index is 23 (Scopus). Professor Zainal is a recipient of 2014 Top Research Scientists Malaysia and was an active YSN-ASM member. One of his notable contributions was to assist the Energy Commission Malaysia in issuing a circular on lightning protection which prohibits the use of unsafe lightning protection systems in Malaysia. This circular is often referred to as an example in the international lightning protection community. He also assisted Energy Commission Malaysia to produce a lightning protection handbook as a reference to the engineers, consultants and organisations. Professor Zainal is actively involved with international agencies such as Advisory Board Member of National Lightning Safety Institute (NLSI), USA. He is also a research advisor for the African Centre for Lightning and Electromagnetic (ACLE). He was instrumental in establishing the Centre of Electromagnetic and Lightning Protection Research (CELP) in UPM. Under his leadership as CELP’s Founding Director, the Centre was awarded as one of the Best Research Centres in UPM and regarded as the World Leader in Lightning Safety by the lightning community worldwide.