Dr. Song Sze Looi is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Universiti Malaya, specialising in Phylogenomics and eDNA Metagenomics. She obtained her PhD in the field of Algal Biotechnology in 2013. Following her doctorate, she was appointed as a Postdoctoral Researcher on a high-impact research project in Molecular Phylogenetics and Systematics. In 2016, she took on the role of Research Fellow, focusing on Next Generation Sequencing and Bioinformatics. In 2019, Dr. Song joined the China-ASEAN College of Marine Sciences at Xiamen University Malaysia as an Assistant Professor. She returned to UM in 2021 and currently serves as the Program Coordinator for the Master of Advanced Studies and the Program Director for Future Studies. Dr. Song’s research integrates high-throughput sequencing technologies and advanced analytical tools to explore the evolutionary relationships and biodiversity of a wide range of organisms, including both marine and terrestrial taxa. She has published over 60 WoS–indexed journal articles. In addition, she has led or contributed to numerous research projects funded by national, international, and industry bodies. Her recent work focuses on the application of eDNA for assessing marine biodiversity and ecosystem health, particularly in sensitive estuarine and coastal habitats.