Professor Dr Hong Ching Goh is an interdisciplinary social scientist specialising in human-environment interactions, with a focus on sustainability, inclusion, and the ways diverse communities benefit from nature, including livelihoods, health and wellbeing, and intangible values. Grounded in urban planning, tourism planning, and geography, her research spans urbanised environments, resource-rich regions, and protected areas. It draws inspiration from her fieldwork in Sabah since 2005 and her coastal research across Southeast Asia.

Currently with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Built Environment, she is appointed Deputy Director of the Malaysia National Antarctic Research Centre starting January 2026. She is a registered town planner with the Malaysian Institute of Planners and the Board of Town Planners Malaysia.

Since 2009, Prof. Goh has secured RM6.9 million in research grants. Of this, RM4.95 million was obtained from international sources. As a co-investigator, she also helped secure a GBP6.4 million Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) grant. This grant supported interdisciplinary research on marine environments and coastal communities. She has held prestigious fellowships, including the MIT-UTM Malaysian Sustainable Cities Program Fellowship and the DAAD Doctoral Scholarship attached to the Center of Development Research (ZEF). She serves as country coordinator for ForUm, a DAAD-funded network connecting Southeast Asian and German experts on Urban Futures since 2018. She is also a member of the ASEAN Science Leadership Program and the Global Young Academy (GYA).

Prof. Goh's contributions have earned significant national and international recognition. In 2021, the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur highlighted her work in conjunction with International Women's Day and Commonwealth Day. She was also invited to join the UK Minister of Science, Amanda Solloway, and Professor Melanie Austen of the University of Plymouth, to discuss climate change impacts on marine environments in the Blue Communities program. She was featured among the 100 Women Scientists in Global Polar Research (2022) and among Women and Girls in Science by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) (2026). In 2024, she was appointed DAAD Research Ambassador in Malaysia and received the Top Research Scientists Malaysia Award from the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

She has published over 65 peer-reviewed articles, 30 book chapters and books, and 40 other publications. She has supervised 14 postgraduate students to completion and currently oversees 10 ongoing students.