About Us
This is the official website of the Yusof family; we’ve set up this blog in response to the considerable media coverage surrounding our family at this point in time. Feel free to contact us if you have any enquiries. Meanwhile, if you just stumbled upon this website and have no idea as to who is behind this blog, this is… er… who we are.
CONTRIBUTOR PROFILES IN BRIEF
Halimahton is a Malaysian citizen living in the UK. Born in Muar, she went to a Singaporean primary school for six years and returned to Malaysia at the age of 14. At 17, she was accepted to Tunku Kurshiah College and subsequently won a scholarship to receive further education in the UK. While studying for her doctorate in organometallic chemistry at the University of Hull, she was regarded as one of the best experimentalists in the department, but she decided to discontinue her PhD in favour of spending time with her four young children until they reached school age. Though Halimahton knew she was good with children (and especially at striking a rapport with them), she didn’t exactly expect to bring up four (and now five) prodigies!
Halimahton now teaches many other children with a wide range of abilities and ages, varying from five-year-olds to GCSE students. She is also writing a book on her teaching philosophy and methods.
Zuleikha received a grade A in A-level maths at age nine. She is now 14, with straight As in A-level maths, further maths, and physics, and has successfully completed courses from the Open University in biology and physics. With her exams behind her, Zuleikha is now in the enviable position of being able to explore whatever topics she likes in the next two years or so before going to university; at the moment, she is spending her time on programming, art, and creative writing, as well as occasionally dipping into higher-level maths. She wants to be a game designer when she grows up, you see.
Most of Zuleikha’s time is taken up by her hobbies, which include reading fantasy novels, listening to her iPod Nano, athletics, tennis, playing games on the PSP, Wii, Xbox 360 and PC (did I say she wanted to be a game designer?), travelling, following the US presidential elections, scaring people, and insisting that her name be spelt with an ‘h’ (even though her birth certificate begs to differ).
At the age of 15, Iskander graduated with a First from the University of Warwick’s four-year MMath programme after having started his degree at 12. Shortly afterwards, he received an MSc in Computer Science from Imperial College London, winning the Group Project Prize with several other teammates for his work in iris recognition. He now works in the areas of machine learning and artificial intelligence, and spends his spare time on at least 25,000 other projects. If only there were more than 24 hours in a day.
When he was seven years old, Abraham was selected for national tennis training and was the youngest person to receive such training. At 13, he was ranked as the 4th best player in the country for the 14-and-under age group and received funding and training from the Rover Junior Tennis Initiative for top UK junior tennis players. After he suffered a wrist injury at 14, he decided to pursue other interests, studying from 18-22 years old and then working in direct-response marketing.
Aisha’s first degree was in exactly the same subject, taken at exactly the same university, and completed at exactly the same time as Iskander’s Warwick degree. Coincidence? No, they went to Warwick together — she was aged 15 to Iskander’s 12 when they entered university. She subsequently completed a Masters in Mathematics Education and is currently putting the finishing touches to a PhD in the same area; in addition, she holds a job in the energy industry and is happily married. Busy woman.