Dr. Tze Ning Hiew received her Bachelor of Science (Pharmacy) and Ph.D. degrees from the National University of Singapore, Singapore. Prior to graduate school, she completed her pre-registration training at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore, and subsequently worked as an inpatient pharmacist in the same hospital.

During her Ph.D. studies, Dr. Hiew's thesis focused on the role of water–excipient interactions on product stability. While excipients used in oral dosage forms are commonly assumed to be inert substances since they do not play a critical role from the pharmacotherapy perspective, the physicochemical properties of the excipients could have a profound impact on the performance of the dosage form.

Dr. Hiew joined the Department of Industrial and Physical Pharmacy (now Department of Industrial and Molecular Pharmaceutics) at the Purdue University College of Pharmacy as a postdoctoral researcher, where her research was directed towards exploring how intermolecular drug–polymer interactions and glass transition temperature affect the physical stability and dissolution behavior of amorphous solid dispersion formulations. She also worked on strategies to increase the drug loading of amorphous formulations through surface chemistry modification of particles.

After completing her postdoctoral training at Purdue University, Dr. Hiew joined the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy as an assistant professor. Research in her group focuses on using innovative formulation and processing strategies to address the challenges of modern day oral drug delivery. Her research is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, PhRMA Foundation, Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, as well as the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Hiew has received a number of awards including the Excellent Safety Lead Award (2014), Excellent Teaching Assistant Award (2016), IPEC Foundation Graduate Student Award (2017), Patrick DeLuca Emerging Researcher Award (2020), the PhRMA Foundation Faculty Starter Grant in Drug Delivery (2024), the National Science Foundation EPSCoR Research Fellowship (2024) and the Ebert Prize for best manuscript in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (2025). She also serves on the editorial boards of AAPS PharmSciTech and the International Journal of Pharmaceutics.

During her free time, Dr. Hiew enjoys baking. She was once told by an esteemed professor that a formulation scientist should be a good cook and has since taken that advice very seriously. Some of her most adventurous bakes include a fondant-covered cake in the shape of a jeep, a fault line cake, and some colorful multi-layered puff pastries.