Professor Dr. April Roslani is a Professor of Colorectal Surgery, and was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya from 2020 - 2024. She graduated from the University of Wales College of Medicine in 1995, and was awarded Universiti Malaya’s Master of Surgery in 2003. In 2007, she established University Malaya Medical Centre’s (UMMC) Colorectal Surgery Unit, which is now the largest in the country, and a key stakeholder in colorectal training and services nationally and regionally.   Her areas of expertise include surgery for colorectal cancer, proctology, surgical training and professionalism. She established the first Malaysian Cytoreductive Surgery (CRS) and Hyperthermic Intra-Peritoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) service in UMMC, which is delivered by a multi-disciplinary team.   Prof. April is an influential driver of postgraduate medical training nationally, regionally and internationally. She has chaired the Conjoint Committee for Postgraduate Medical Degrees, which oversees, aligns and coordinates medical specialist training programmes across all higher education providers in Malaysia. Recognizing the need to standardize training across institutions in order to meet the country’s need for healthcare specialists, she led the development of a new national training curriculum for general surgery under the National Postgraduate Curriculum Project. As chair of the Train-the-Trainers Steering Committee, she led the development of a blended curriculum for train-the-trainers modules, which has been rolled out across all specialties, nationally. She has advocated against toxic workplace environments, generating the evidence base and incorporating training modules in both trainee and trainer curricula.   Her leadership credentials are undisputed. Until recently, she was Regional Ambassador for the Association of Academic Health Centers International, and hosted the ASEAN Medical Deans Summit in 2023. She is a Councillor in the International Surgical Society, which champions outreach educational activities to improve access to surgical services globally, and was part of the team that successfully ran the International Surgical Week 2024 in Malaysia for the first time. She was Chair of the Steering Committee for the National Postgraduate Medical Curriculum Project. From a regulatory perspective, she leads the Malaysian Medical Council’s Specialty Subcommittee (Education) for General Surgery, which set the standards for recognition of training programmes, and she regularly evaluates programmes for accreditation by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency. She is the immediate Past-President for the Malaysian Society of Colorectal Surgeons, the College of Surgeons, Academy of Medicine of Malaysia and the Asia Pacific Federation of Coloproctology.   Through these and other related roles, she works towards advancing surgical standards, and fairness in the workplace. Her work has been recognized by the international surgical fraternity, through numerous Honorary Fellowship awards, including most recently from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and the American Surgical Association.

Dr Tan Boon Chin is an Associate Professor holding the position of Deputy Director at the Centre for Research in Biotechnology for Agriculture (CEBAR) at the University of Malaya (UM). He completed his BSc in Biotechnology at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and a PhD in Plant Biotechnology at the University of Nottingham. Dr Tan was employed by UM as a postdoctoral research fellow before taking up the senior lecturer role. Dr Tan's interests span the fields of plant molecular biology and biochemistry. His current research aims to combine omics and molecular approaches to understanding the regulatory mechanism of transcription factors in environmental-stressed crops, hoping to find ways to improve crop tolerance for near-future climates. These include (1) developing a product in the form of biostimulants to mitigate climate stress for these crops, (2) developing appropriate educational programmes for farmers to promote sustainable agriculture, and (3) making recommendations to policymakers. Dr Tan's research interests also encompass genetically manipulating biosynthetic pathways in plants to produce beneficial bioactive compounds. Additionally, he explores the potential of using plants as an alternative platform for producing high-value recombinant pharmaceutical proteins. He received several awards, including the Royal Society-Newton Advanced Fellowship (2017), the Travel Award for the Asia Pacific Biosafety Association Conference from the United States Department of State Biosecurity Engagement Program (2017), and the Alltech Young Scientist Award 2012/13. Dr Tan is currently the Lead Consultant for the National Biosafety Policy project. He is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Plant Growth Regulation (JPGR) and an Editorial Board Member of BMC Plant Biology, Heliyon, Molecular Biotechnology (MOBI), Asia Pacific Journal of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (APJMBB), Discover Food, Discover Plants, and the Journal of Agribusiness Marketing (JAMA). Dr Tan is also the President of the Malaysian Society for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (MSMBB), an Honorary Secretary of the Asia Oceania Agricultural Proteomics Organization (AOAPO), a council member of the Malaysian Proteomics Society (MAPS), Malaysian Society of Plant Physiology (MSPP), and Malaysian Society of Systems and Synthetic Biology (MyBioSS), and an eLife Community Ambassador.  His research group is committed to dedicating their expertise and ideas to catalyse efforts toward achieving the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG2). See the interview: https://www.springernature.com/gp/researchers/the-source/blog/blogposts-communicating-research/enhan...

Dr. Bryan Raj is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Computer Syetem and Technology, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Malaya since 2023. He earned his PhD in Computing from Universiti Malaya. Dr. Bryan's research focuses on the metaheuristic algorithm and methods to optimize clustering in Wireless Sensor Networks. His publications are on high impact jornal such as IEEE Access. Besides researches and academic successes, he is also a certified Microsoft Azure Administrator. He is currently working on a research that is related to precision agriculture using wireless sensor networks. Currently he is also venturing into the dynamicity of metaheuristic algorithms in optimization of clustering and routing.