Siti Aisyah Alias is a Malaysian mycologist and Deputy Executive Director of the Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Universiti Malaya. Since 2001, she has been the Deputy Director of the National Antarctic Research Centre (NARC) and the Malaysian Antarctic Research Programme (MARP). In January 2023, she became the Director of the National Antarctic Research Centre (NARC) Malaysia. Her scientific research fields include fungal biodiversity of marine fungi and polar soil fungi, antimicrobial activity and cold-adapted enzymes, and biochemistry of polar microbes. She has described more than twenty new marine fungi to science and published more than 125 peer-reviewed articles. She is co-author and co-editor of 28 books, including two books, namely Checklist of Fungi of Malaysia and Marine Fungi from Mangroves of Malaysia. Under the Higher Institute of Centre of Excellence (HICoE), she is leading a project on Latitudinal Differences in Response and Adaptation of Microbes to Atmospheric Changes. She has significant field experience in the tropics, the Antarctic, and the Arctic, participating in eight polar research expeditions as a result of her strong international networking and collaboration and these include Australian Antarctic (AAD), Instituto Antarctico Chileno (INACH), Instituto Antarctico Equatoriano (INAE), Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), Polish Polar Department and British Antarctic Survey.  She has helped the Malaysian Antarctica Program to develop through her international collaboration. She is also active in outreach activities to promote STEM and polar sciences. She participated in Malaysian Antarctic Research Program (MARP)’s outreach programmes to promote awareness of Antarctica among undergraduate students and secondary school pupils in Malaysia. This outreach activity is called Malaysia’s Journey to the Ice: Women in Antarctica, part of the MOSTI Social Innovation (MSI) grant (2015 – 2017). She has assisted in the development of Malaysia’s Antarctic policies and practices following the country’s accession to the Antarctic Treaty under a grant from the Ministry of Higher Education for the development of Science and Policy in Antarctica (2014- 2017).  Currently, she assists in developing Malaysia's Antarctic Bill. In recognition of her various achievements as a lecturer and researcher, Dr. Siti was awarded Saintis Muda Negara in 2000, CTI-CFF Women Leaders Forum Program and the only Malaysian represented in Wikipedia as recognition for women and their work in Antarctic Research (2016) and MOHE Women Across the World: “Saintis Wanita Terkemuka Dunia Dari 30 Negara Dalam Bidang Sains Antartika”, MOHE, 2018. In 2022, she was featured among the '100 Women Scientists in Global Polar Research'. She sits on various national and international panels such as the MOSTI Science Fund evaluation panel, Asia Forum of Polar Sciences (AFOPs) Panel and Academy of Science Malaysia (ASM) Taskforce Member on Antarctica, Selection Advisory Committee for Australian Research Council (ARC), Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Malaysia Education Blueprint, Academy Sciences of Malaysia and Board Member and Jury in Universal Scientific (USERN) in the field of Biological Sciences since 2019. She is also a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

Dr. Seuk Wai PHOONG is an Associate Professor in the Department of Decision Science, Faculty of Business and Economics, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. She is a member of the Malaysian Mathematical Science Society (PERSAMA). Her research interests include applied statistics, econometrics, time series analysis, bibliometric analysis, and education. She has led 8 research projects out of 24 research grants. She has published papers in various WoS and Scopus journals, such as Sage Open, Artificial Intelligence Review, Humanities and Social Science, Mathematics, International Journal of Mobile Communications, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Energies, Symmetry, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, etc. She is also an academic editor for several journals, including PLOS One, Asian Journal of Business and Accounting, and SAGE Open. She teaches Business Statistics and Quantitative Analysis for Business at the undergraduate level; Research Methodology, Statistical Analysis, and Operational Research at the postgraduate level.

  Dr Zamri Zainal Abidin is a radio astronomy researcher who focuses on exploring the fundamental and applications of deep space astrophysics and solar astronomy sciences. He has been a physicist and lecturer at the Department of Physics, University of Malaya since 2005. After graduating from the Jodrell Bank Centre of Astrophysics at University of Manchester, and together with Dr Zainol Abidin Ibrahim, he established the Radio Cosmology Research Lab Group, which is the first and currently only radio astronomical research group in the country. His PhD thesis won the best publication in astronomy in 2005 awarded by the National Space Agency (ANGKASA). His team of researchers won medals at expos including at the Research, Invention and Innovation Expo (silver medal; awarded by Universiti Malaya in 2006), International Invention, Innovation & Technology Exhibition (gold medal; awarded by Ministry Of Science Technology And Innovation Of Malaysia in 2017), Research and Innovation Week Expo (gold medal; awarded by Education, Science, Technology And Transformation of State of Terengganu in 2017) and Seoul International Invention Fair 2017 (2 silver medals; awarded by Korean Invention Promotion Association in 2017). Among his responsibilities are; the chair of the radio astronomy group for the South East Asian Astronomy Network (SEAAN) since 2007, national representative for the Radio Astronomy Frequency Committee in the Asia-Pacific region (RAFCAP) since 2010, regional advisory committee member for the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) since 2017 and the head of the Malaysia-East Asian Observatory Consortium (MEAsOOC) since 2019. He received numerous fellowships including the Freeman Foundation Fellowship (awarded by the Salzburg Seminar, Austria in 2005), Chinese Academy of Sciences Visiting Research Fellowship For Developing Countries (awarded by the CAS China in 2013) and President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI) for Visiting Scientists (awarded by the CAS China in 2019). For his work with the CAS, he was nominated for The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) "Regional Award for Building Scientific Institutions" in 2020. In 2022, he was invited to make a special extended appearance in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) documentary "Solar Storm: A Warning from Space". In his administrative duty, he held the position of the Deputy Dean at the Faculty of Science in Universiti Malaya between 2017 and 2019. He was the Head of Department of Physics bwtween 2022 and 2025. He attended the Executive Education Program on "Innovation in the Digital Age: Entrepreneurship Lessons from Silicon Valley" conducted by the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley in June 2023. He is currently the acting director the National Centre of Particple Physics, since November 2024. In 2025, he has 9 ongoing PhD students and 12 ongoing masters students under his supervision. The total number of postgraduate students that have graduated under his supervision stands at 28 (11 PhD and 17 masters). He has also supervised a total number of 83 undergraduate Final Year Project (FYP) students.