Dr. Mohd Rizal Muwazir serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Islamic Management and Finance at the Academy of Islamic Studies, Universiti Malaya. He earned his Ph.D. from Cardiff Business School, United Kingdom, in 2012, and obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Social Science Research Methods from Cardiff University in 2007. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Shariah (Shariah & Management) in 2003 and his Master of Business Administration (Accounting) in 2006, both from Universiti Malaya. Dr. Mohd Rizal’s research interests encompass Islamic banking and finance, Shariah auditing and governance, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and financial sustainability. He currently serves as a Shariah Committee Member at OCBC Al-Amin Bank Berhad and Great Eastern Takaful Berhad. In addition, he is a research team member at the Gulf One Lab for Computational and Economic Research (GOLCER), Lancaster University Management School, United Kingdom. Beyond his academic and professional commitments, Dr. Mohd Rizal also serves on the editorial boards of several local and international journals, including the Online Journal of Islamic Management and Finance (Universiti Malaya), Jurnal Kinabalu (Universiti Malaysia Sabah), and El Muhasaba: Jurnal Akuntansi (Indonesia). He is furthermore a certified Halal Executive, accredited by the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM).

Started his research career in the think tank sector, Dr. Lee Chee Leong (Karl) is attracted to the rise of non-traditional diplomacy in the international order today. Such appeal has taken Dr. Lee into new research horizons that started with his Monash University's doctoral research on the Chinese sub-state diplomacy in China-ASEAN economic cooperation. With constructive supervision by Professor Helen Nesadurai and Associate Professor Kuik Cheng Chwee, Dr. Lee completed his doctoral thesis that unravels how a faraway and least developed sub-state of Guangxi managed to overcome its own hurdles, navigate the complexities within the Chinese state and become the frontline actor in China-ASEAN economic cooperation. Following his doctoral completion, Dr. Lee's research on non-traditional diplomacy has expanded into Taiwan’s quasi-state diplomacy in Southeast Asia. Such quest has led him spending at great length in comprehending the concept of soft power, a concept that finds its relevance to Taiwan, which has no official diplomatic with Southeast Asia but is heavily connected to the region and has to rely on soft power in its engagements with these Southeast Asian nations. Taking Malaysia as the first case study of Taiwan's soft power in the region, Dr. Lee is developing the third intervening variable correlating both Taiwanese soft power resources and outcomes, in his course of providing a dynamical explanation for such phenomenon. For the coming years, his research focus and publications will be on the different areas featuring Taiwan-Malaysia and Taiwan-Southeast Asia cooperation such as digital social innovation (DSI) for climate change, industry-based education/training programmes, smart cities, tourism, digital democracy, agriculture, public health and medicine, ornamental aquaculture and aquascape. To date, Dr. Lee was the recipient of several scholarships and fellowships in Malaysia and overseas: University of Malaya’s Graduate Fellowship (2010-2011); Monash University’s Merit Scholarship (2016-2019); Chinese Government Scholarship (2018-2019); and Taiwan Fellowship (2020). Prior to his appointment as Senior Lecturer at the Institute of China Studies (ICS), he was the Visiting Scholar at Guangxi University for Nationalities (GXUN) (2018-10992019), Taiwan Fellow at National Chengchi University (NCCU) (2020) and Associate Fellow at ICS UM (2016-2019).He welcomes any potential PhD candidate who would like to work on Taiwan-Southeast Asia relations, Taiwan's soft power in Southeast Asia and Taiwan-Malaysia DSI cooperation for climate change. He is also willing to discuss with potential doctoral candidates on proposals related to the Chinese sub-state (provincial) diplomacy toward ASEAN, China's soft power in ASEAN, Southeast Asian sub-state diplomacy, comparative cases of sub-state diplomacy around the world and conceptual innovation of sub-state diplomacy as well as soft power. 

BIODATA   Rosmawani Che Hashim is an associate professor at the Department of Management and Marketing, Universiti Malaya (UM). Her areas of expertise are commercial law and banking law. She holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) degree in 1992 and a Bachelor of Shariah Law (Hons) degree in 1993 from the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). Following her bachelor’s degree, she obtained her master’s in international commercial law from the University of Nottingham, the UK, in 1995. She holds her Ph.D. in Islamic Banking and Finance Law at the International Islamic Banking and Finance Institute (IIiBF) at IIUM. She began her career as a lecturer at Universiti Utara Malaysia in 1995 before transferring to UM in 2005. Currently, she is teaching Commercial Law and Legal Aspects of Banking Law at the Faculty of Business and Economics (FBE). Apart from her considerable teaching experience and administration posts, she is active in literary pursuits. She published articles in her related field in various social sciences journals, books, and proceedings of international conferences. She has several years of experience in consulting projects with agencies such as Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), the Asian Institute of Finance (AIF), and the British High Commission, United Kingdom. Her research area covers legal issues in commercial and banking laws, wellbeing at the workplace, domestic violence, and elderly and informal caretakers' wellbeing. Her current interest is in qualitative research.