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Professor Azizan Baharuddin received her BSc (Hons), 1975 in Biology from University of Tasmania, Australia, M.Sc (Univ. College London), 1978 and PhD, 1984 in Philosophy of Science University of Lancaster, U.K. She specialises in several areas such as environmental ethics and bioethics; science, religion and development; interfaith and intercivilisational dialogue. She has taught, researched and published widely in all these areas (39 books & monographs, more than 100 book chapters as well as articles and scores of newspaper articles). She has received the University of Malaya Excellent Service Award 3 times. She is also active in several governmental organisations (GOs) as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are connected with gender, development, the environment and intercultural/interfaith dialogue. She is a member of various advisory and consultative committees for ministries such as the Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development; Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI); Ministry of Youth and Sports; Ministry of Education (MOE); National Commission for UNESCO Malaysia, under MOE, Ministry of Culture and Heritage and Department of National Unity under The Prime Minister’s Office. Azizan is also a member of the Panel of Experts (EPPS) on Philosophy of Science, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (National Literary and Language Policy Institution) Kuala Lumpur. EPPS endeavours to promote science and ethics literacy in the non-English speaking section of the Malaysian society. She is also a member of the UNESCO Network of Women Philosophers and she has received an award from the Templeton Centre for Theology & Natural Sciences (2001) for her work on Science & Religion. She is a Member of the Social Science Division under the National Commission for UNESCO Malaysia (2007-present), and appointed member of the International Bioethics Committee (IBC) by the Director-General of UNESCO for 2014-2017. She was instrumental in the establishment of the first university UNESCO Club in 2010 and was influential in the establishment of the Malaysian UNESCO Day commemorated since 2011. She is also Chairperson of the National Bioethics Council of Malaysia (NBC) 2014-2015, Chairperson of National Committee for Interfaith Understanding and Harmony (appointment by The Prime Minister), Member of National Science and Research Council (appointment by The Prime Minister) and Group Leader on ethics and governance for the Asian Core Program (ACP), a research collaboration between University of Malaya and Kyoto University (Japan) for 2000-2016. Prior to this she was team leader for the Ethics, Economics and Management group of the [JSPS-VCC Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, Ministry of Education & Science Japan (JSPS) and the Vice-Chancellors Council of Malaysia (VCC), Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia] 2000-2010. Besides annually giving papers at various conferences locally and abroad, she is also regularly invited to give inputs through local TV and radio programs regarding issues that are of relevance to society connected to her areas of specialisation. Since 2012, she has her own weekly radio program on science, society and ethics. Currently she is professor at the Department of Science and Technology Studies, as well as Deputy Director-General of Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (on the basis of her expertise in the area of environment, ethics & science, and interfaith dialogue). She was Director of the Centre for Civilizational Dialogue University of Malaya (2000-2011). In the context of her disseminating knowledge, information and reflection vis-à-vis ethics and/in science, the impact of her efforts in science & ethics can be seen from her activities that include research, teaching, writing & conferencing to promote ethics and science in the context of the environment, bioethics and sustainable development, both in the academic and public domain, locally and internationally.

Rosnah Zain has served as an academician for more than 30 years. She has been involved in managing the dental faculty at the University of Malaya in the capacity of the Head of Department, the Deputy Dean (Undergraduate/Postgraduate/Research) and Dean (2010-2014) for the last 25 years. Her role in these positions involved managing curriculum and its development, the dental services centre (including human resource infrastructure and dental patients’ general issues). In the research setting, she strongly believes in collective efforts so as to gather a wider scope of ideas yet benefiting the others as well. Through this believe she had embarked on numerous projects with numerous co-researchers within the country and from countries of the region. One of her major research endeavors is a collaborative research project with colleagues from the Oral Health Division, Ministry of Health Malaysia and Aichi-Gakuin University, Nagoya, Japan in 1993/1994. This nationwide project on the prevalence of oral mucosal lesions produced the first population-based prevalence data on oral cancer and precancer in the Malaysia. This study emphasizes her leadership and organizational skill where despite fund limitations, with national and international support, she was able to successfully manage and organize human resource infrastructure and logistics towards the successful completion of the project.Throughout the organization of these researches and in collaboration with Japanese, Swedish and German colleagues, she has developed calibration and training packages/programmes and booklets. These packages/programmes are aimed at tackling methodologic issues such that data on oral mucosal lesions will be standardized for meaningful global comparison. This training programme (DentalDetect) is currently being used widely in Malaysia and also in Cambodia. Another of her major research endeavor is the development of the Malaysian Oral Cancer Database and Tumour Bank System [a ‘Top-down Intensified Research in Priority Areas (IRPA), the 8th Malaysia Plan (RMK-80 project] in 2003, a biobanking intiative linking data and tissue providers, researchers of different disciplines from different parts of the country. With such a system, research on oral cancer in Malaysia shifted from individual/group research to the ‘team science’ approach being a collaborative effort from different institutions. As a follow-up to this, her effort was recognized by the University administration where a University of Malaya Research Centre was officially recognized and supported by the University Management with the formation of the Oral Cancer Research and Coordinating Centre at the University of Malaya (OCRCC-UM) in 2005, which she served as the Director/Head until December 2015. She is currently designated as the Founding Director and Advisor to OCRCC-UM. Her other experiences entails being involved as the Chair of the Document Preparation for Assessments in preparation for the University of Malaya Self-Audit for Programme Accreditation; being Member and Chairman for the Accreditation of Dental Programme for the MQA; Committee Member for the evaluation and monitoring of the the Higher Education Centre of Excellence (HiCOE) of the Ministry of Education; Evaluation Panel for the Malaysian Ministry of Education Research Grant; and a member of the Professional Qualifying Examination for Dentistry. Rosnah Zain has published more than 100 research and consensus papers. Her research expertise and experience lead her to receive the ‘Top Research Scientists Award 2014’(TRSM 2014) and more recently in 2016, she has been inducted as the ‘Distinguished Fellow for Asia, International College of Dentists (FICD)’.

Ong Zhi Chao, received both his Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering (2007) and Master of Engineering Science degree in vibration and rotor dynamics (2010) from University of Malaya, Malaysia with distinction. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in University of Malaya in March, 2013. His expertise includes vibration, modal analysis, virtual instrumentation and signal processing. He is active in research and developed a new vibration testing technique named as Impact-Synchronous Modal Analysis (ISMA) which has been implemented in teaching, research and real industrial cases. For the past 8 years, he involved in numerous industrial projects on machinery vibration at both on-shore and off-shore petrochemical and oil and gas processing plants in Malaysia. He also has experiences in conducting machinery vibration training courses for engineers and technicians from oil and gas industry. Dr. Ong was appointed as visiting research fellow of Faculty of Science and Technology at Bournemouth University in 2014 for the tenure of 3 years. He is also a Chartered Engineer of Engineering Council, UK under the membership of Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK since 2014. He became the corporate member of Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (IEM) and has successfully registered as Professional Engineer (P.Eng) with Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) in 2016. He also joined Institute of Materials, Malaysia (IMM) in 2015 and has been elected as a committee member in IMM Vibration Committee.