Sadia Rahman received her doctoral degree in International Relations from National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan in 2022. She pursued her MA from Presidency University and BA from Calcutta University, India. Before joining Universiti Malaya Rahman worked as an Assistant Professor at Atatürk University, Türkiye in 2023. Presently, she is a lecturer at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, with her research interests primarily focusing on International Relations, Global Governance, Human Rights, China Studies (China's domestic/ethnic policies and foreign policy), Cross-Strait Relations (Regional Security Issues) and South Asia. Her academic achievements include receiving prestigious scholarships such as the MOFA Taiwan fellowship and MOE doctoral scholarship from the ROC government. She obtained a grant from the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy for her project on human rights, further highlighting her dedication to impactful research. In 2021, Rahman was awarded the Outstanding Student Award by the ROC government for her exceptional academic accomplishments. In addition to her academic pursuits, Rahman serves as the Associate Editor of the Asian Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, showcasing her active involvement in the scholarly community. She has also been a participant in the XUAR workshop a European Funded (EU) project, including presenting her work in several international academic conferences.

  Dr Faizul Azli Mohd Rahim is a Professor at the Department of Quantity Surveying, Faculty of Built Environment, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. He graduated with BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying from the University of Salford, UK in 1997, and received MSc IT in Property & Construction from the same university in 1998. He graduated with a Phd from the University of Liverpool in 2011 in the area of project risk management. Since his appointment at the University of Malaya, he had been teaching various subjects such as data analysis, construction economics, project management and IT in construction. He also hold various administrative positions such as the Head of Departments and Deputy Dean (Research & Value Creation & Enterprise) for the faculty. He had published in various local and international journals. He had been reviewing various international journal papers as well as being the examiners for undergraduate programmes and postgraduate research study. His research interest mainly construction economics, IT in construction and project risk management.   

Dr Reena Rajasuriar is a Clinical Pharmacist by training and an Associate Professor at the Department of Medicine, University Malaya (UM).  She also holds an adjunct position as a Fellow at the Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Melbourne, Australia.  She leads the research unit at the Department of Medicine, UM and is Head of the Immunotherapeutics Laboratory (ITL), a core immunology research laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine, UM.    Dr Rajasuriar completed her PhD in Immunogenetics at Monash University, Australia and now leads a translational research program in HIV and Aging at the Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS (CERiA).  Her training as a clinical and basic scientist has afforded Dr Rajasuriar the expertise to perform multidisciplinary research spanning basic, clinical and implementation studies.  Her research focuses on understanding drivers of accelerated aging in people living with HIV and its interaction with functional aging outcomes.  She is also invested in understanding how integrated HIV care can best be implemented in resource limited settings to promote healthy aging.   Dr Rajasuriar has published extensively on the intersection of HIV and aging, and is an international leader in advancing the knowledge in this field, having delivered multiple plenaries at international forums, co-authored multiple opinion pieces and viewpoints as well as contributed to the development of consensus statements around this subject matter.  Together with members of her team, she was instrumental in developing the first ECHO training program on HIV and Aging for the Asia Pacific region to advance capacity building for health professionals providing care for people with HIV.  She is also the Principal Investigator of the only HIV and aging cohort in the Asia Pacific region studying aging from a multidimensional perspective, with over a decade of follow up (2014-2024).   Dr Rajasuriar’s work is funded by various national and international funding bodies including the National Institutes of Health, US, the American Foundation for AIDS Research and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia.  She has received multiple accolades including the Australia-APEC Women in Research Fellowship (2015), the Loreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Malaysia Fellowship (2016), the IAS Research-for-Cure Academy Fellowship (2018), the CIRA International Visiting Fellowship to Yale (2019), the Asian Universities Alliance (AUA) Scholars Award (2023) and most recently, the Fulbright Malaysian Scholar Award (2024).