Surinderpal Kaur is a Professor and the Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics at the Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. She holds a PhD from Lancaster University, UK. With a career spanning over three decades, she has made significant contributions to the fields of linguistics, critical discourse studies, and multimodality. Her expertise lies in Critical Discourse Studies and Multimodality, with research interests spanning discrimination and prejudice, particularly in migration, Islamophobia, far-right extremism, terrorism, gender, and sexuality. She has been invited to speak by the Director-General of the OIC on Islamophobia at the UN for the International Day Against Islamophobia in 2024. She has also been invited to speak on Islamophobia by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. She has published extensively in reputable journals, contributing to the global understanding of how discourse shapes and reflects social realities.​ Currently, her work centres on climate change communication and education, reflecting her commitment to addressing pressing global challenges. She is also the Co-Chair of the University Malaya Committee for Climate Change which functions as a part of the technology advisory panel for Climate Change for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability. As Co-Chair, she is focused on ensuring that UM obtains observer status at the Conference of Parties for Climate Change, and also for UM to take the lead in climate-related research in the nation. She is also the SDG Champion for Climate Change for Universiti malaya. She has represented Malaysia and UM at COP29 (UNFCCC) in Baku on Humanising Sustainability. She is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics at UM. She is also the Acting Chair, and Vice-Chair for the Malaysian Language Deans Council, and is leading the taskforce for all public universities on Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL). She is committed to embedding digital humanities in the teaching and learning of languages and is focused on establishing a Digital Humanities Centre at the faculty, which will be the hub for TELL for the nation and ASEAN.  Beyond academia, she is actively involved in capacity-building initiatives for Punjabi and Sikh youth in Malaysia, fostering leadership and community development.  Her career reflects a deep commitment to inclusive education, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the application of linguistics to address pressing social and environmental challenges. She continues to shape national and international discourse on the critical role of language in society.  

Professor Andri Andriyana is a Professor of Applied Mechanics. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia, in 2000. From 2000 to 2002, he worked as a Field Engineer at Halliburton, where he was involved in several oil and gas well cementing and stimulation projects. He obtained Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et d’Aérotechnique (ENSMA) - Université de Poitiers, France, in 2003. In 2006, he was awarded Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics with Distinction from École Centrale de Nantes, France. Following the completion of his Ph.D., he served as an Assistant Professor at École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers (ENSAM), Bordeaux, and subsequently spent two years as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Centre de Mise en Forme des Matériaux (CEMEF), École des Mines de Paris, Sophia Antipolis. Professor Andriyana joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Malaya, in 2009 as a Senior Lecturer. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016 and to Full Professor in 2023. To date, he has secured approximately USD 5 Million in funding, including grants for research, European mobility, and capacity-building initiatives in higher education from both public and private sectors. Since 2013, he has been a registered Chartered Engineer (CEng) with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), United Kingdom. His awards and recognitions include the Bourse du Gouvernement Français Scholarship (2002-2003), the Allocation de Recherche Scholarship (2003-2006), the Mahar Schützenberger Prize (2005), the European Interweave Erasmus Mundus Fellowship (2014), UM Sijil Perkhidmatan Cemerlang Award (2011, 2016 and 2020), the Indonesia World Class Professor Fellowship (2017) and UM Anugerah Perkhidmatan Cemerlang Award 2022. Professor Andriyana has held several academic leadership roles, including Head of the Master of Materials Engineering Program (2013–2019), Deputy Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Engineering (2019–2021), and Director of the International Relations Centre, Universiti Malaya (2023–2025). His research interests focus on mechanical testing, constitutive modeling, and finite element simulation of deformation, degradation, fracture, fatigue and failure in materials including solid polymers, elastomers, metal alloys, composites and soft biological tissues.

  Dr Benedict Francis is an associate professor and consultant psychiatrist at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya and was selected for the Brightsparks scholarship to pursue his Masters in Psychological Medicine at his alma mater, the University of Malaya. Subsequently, he completed a fellowship program in Aged Healthcare Services at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, in 2019. Dr Benedict is one of the research leads at the Psychological Medicine Research Unit and has been involved as principal investigator and sub-investigator for several international, multi-centre clinical trials including the ESCAPE-TRD, REMISSIO, ASPIRE, SUSTAIN-3, ROUTE 6, and CONNEX-2 trials. He has also published in several international and regional peer-reviewed journals and presented in international congresses. Dr Benedict has and continues to exhibit stellar leadership in his field. He was part of the Ministry of Health’s  National Advisory Board committee that drafted the guidelines for prescribing and dispensing Esketamine, a novel adjunct antidepressant treatment. In addition, he has been part of several steering commitees that paved new directions in mental health. For example, he was appointed to be part of the Southeast Asian steering committee to develop a patient decision aid for people living with schizophrenia. He is also part of the regional Asia Pacific steering commitee to develop a module for cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia (CIAS). In 2023, he received the Excellent Service Award from the University of Malaya in recognition of his contributions. Dr Benedict is regarded as a Key Opinion Leader in the field of treatment resistant depression and schizophrenia and is a regular invited speaker at both local and regional events. He is actively involved in several associations at various levels. He is a life member of the Malaysian Psychiatric Association and a corresponding member of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He is also a member of the Asian College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He was inducted as Fellow of the Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists.  Besides clinical medicine, Dr Benedict is keenly interested in the various facets of research ethics, particularly in the subfield of Neuroethics. He was recently awarded a scholarship under the auspices of the Fogarty International Centre of the United States National Institute of Health in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, to pursue his Master's in Health Research and Ethics at the University of Malaya.