Ida HILMI is a Professor and Senior Consultant in Gastroenterology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Prof Ida Hilmi graduated with first class honours from the University of Glasgow in 1997. She went on to do her training in internal medicine in Oxford and obtained her Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom (MRCP) in 2000. She then joined the Northeast London Gastroenterology and Hepatology specialist program before returning to Malaysia in 2003. She is the current Chair of the National Gastroenterology and Hepatology Training Committee as well as the President for the Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (MSGH) and the President for the Malaysian Society for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (MyIBD). Her other positions include Honorary Secretary for the Asian Education Network in IBD (IBD-AEN), Board member of the Asian Organization for Crohn’s and Colitis (AOCC); council member as well as member for the Women and Leadership in GI Taskforce for the Asian Pacific Association of Gastroenterology (APAGE), the South East Asian representative for the European Crohn's and Colitis Organisation (ECCO) Global Taskforce, member of the Asian EUS group (AEG) and the Malaysian lead for the IBD Emerging Nations Consortium (IBD-ENC). Her past positions include Head of the Department of Medicine, Head of Division in Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Director of Endoscopy in University of Malaya. She is part the National Colorectal Cancer Taskforce and is a trustee for the Journal of Hepatology and Gastroenterology Foundation (JGHF) which is involved in medical research, education and training in gastroenterology and hepatology within the Asia-Pacific region. Professor Ida Hilmi’s principal area of research is the epidemiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in emerging nations which includes a recent landmark study looking at the global evolution of IBD published in Nature.