Siti Aisyah Alias is a Malaysian mycologist and Deputy Executive Director of the Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Universiti Malaya. Since 2001, she has been the Deputy Director of the National Antarctic Research Centre (NARC) and the Malaysian Antarctic Research Programme (MARP). In January 2023, she became the Director of the National Antarctic Research Centre (NARC) Malaysia. Her scientific research fields include fungal biodiversity of marine fungi and polar soil fungi, antimicrobial activity and cold-adapted enzymes, and biochemistry of polar microbes. She has described more than twenty new marine fungi to science and published more than 125 peer-reviewed articles. She is co-author and co-editor of 30 books, including two books, namely Checklist of Fungi of Malaysia and Marine Fungi from Mangroves of Malaysia. Under the Higher Institute of Centre of Excellence (HICoE), she is leading a project on Latitudinal Differences in Response and Adaptation of Microbes to Atmospheric Changes. She has significant field experience in the tropics, the Antarctic, and the Arctic, participating in eight polar research expeditions as a result of her strong international networking and collaboration and these include Australian Antarctic (AAD), Instituto Antarctico Chileno (INACH), Instituto Antarctico Equatoriano (INAE), Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), Polish Polar Department and British Antarctic Survey.  She has helped the Malaysian Antarctica Program to develop through her international collaboration. She is