Dr. Bala Murali Sundram is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Occupational and Environmental Health Unit, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. He completed his Masters (MPH) and Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) from University Malaya. His areas of research interest are in Public Health, mainly in Occupational Health,  Environmental Health ,  Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Disease Surveillance, Predictive analytics in Public Health, Mental health and psycho-social biomarkers at the workplace. He has headed various critical and important posts in the Public Health Division, Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) as a Public Health Medicine Specialist prior to joining University Malaya as a Senior Lecturer. Some of his notable positions in the Ministry of Health were as District Health Officer in Kunak, Sabah, Head of Occupational Health Unit and Biomedical Epidemiology Unit in the Institute for Medical Research (IMR)- National Institute of Health (NIH) and Head of Disease Surveillance and Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC),  Johor State Health Department. He had played a significant role and contributed immensely during the Covid-19 pandemic in disease surveillance, translational and impactful research for the relevant stakeholders, quarantine and isolation strategies, international health regulation and border health policies and state vaccination strategies during his tenure in MOH. Following this he had received recognition and the Exemplary Service