Suraya Hamid completed her for Bachelor of Information Technology (Industrial Computing) 1998 and Master in Information Technology (Comp. Sc.) 2000 from The National University of Malaysia. Obtained Ph.D. from the Department of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne in 2013. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Malaysia. She has also completed her tenure as the Head of Department (Information Systems) from August 2014- July 2017 and Deputy Dean of Students Affair 1/1/22 until 28/2/2025. Suraya was involved in various research in the areas of information systems specifically on social informatics, educational technology, information services, e-learning, and data analytics.  Established collaboration with international and national research collaborators for various research grants. Her works were also published in respectable ISI and SCOPUS indexed journals as well as presented at various international conferences. She actively supervises many students at all levels of study from undergraduate and post-graduate. She active with students’ activities as local and international level.  Suraya also involves with MyAIS and AIS (Association of Information Systems), AKRAB UM and various community projects.

Trained in Cultural Studies, I am a researcher engaging in interdisciplinary research on culture. My research is primarily concerned with the cultural history of modern and contemporary China through the lens of ‘folk’ or minjian. In particular, I am interested in how ‘folk’ has been discursively constructed by the state and intellectuals throughout the 20th century, and how it continues to be represented at heritage sites, folk art museums, folk art fairs, as well as contemporary art exhibitions in the 21st century. My interdisciplinary PhD training in Cultural Studies in Asia at the National University of Singapore has taught me to be a questioner, committed to promoting critical and creative thinking as a mode of living beyond academia. Being a practitioner of critical pedagogy, I always problematize preconceived ideas that have shaped our understandings of the world. As a lecturer, I believe that classroom is where knowledge is produced and challenged through productive dialogues between teachers and students. Besides teaching in the classroom, I am also an active listener keen on translating students’ personal experience and knowledge into discussion materials. Critical discussion could help students reflect upon how our perception of the world is sociologically constructed. Students are not passive learners but knowledge producers. My role as a teacher is to acknowledge students’ opinions as knowledge and situate their knowledge within a larger socio-political, economic, and cultural contexts so as to allow them to scrutinize their common sense. I am currently not available for Master's and PhD supervisions. 

Premalatha Thiagarajan is currently a senior lecturer and the Deputy Dean (Undergraduate and Student Affairs) at the Faculty of Creative Arts, Universiti Malaya. Trained in the Indian classical dances, Bharata Natyam and Odissi, she has staged numerous dance performances and conducted workshops and lecture-demonstrations in Malaysia and abroad. She is the founder of Premalayaa Performing Arts, a company that specialises in Indian classical dance and music. She is a member of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology, World Dance Alliance (WDA) and the Dance Studies Association (DSA). Through her numerous research publications, she has pioneered the study on Indian dance in Malaysia. Her current research interest also focuses on dance as therapy and arts and indigenous tourism.