ASSOCIATE PROF. DR. MUHAMMAD FAIZAL BIN A. GHANI

    Muhammad Faizal A. Ghani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Management, Administration and Policy, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. His expertise is Educational Leadership focusing on Educational Management and Administration, and School Finance. His expertise is for the benefit of society by sharing some academic knowledge, skills, and value in the forms of reading material such as publishing nine academic books and two hunderd articles. His latest academic book entitled “Professional Learning Communities:  Theories and Practices”. In terms of delivering an academic speech, he has been selected to be keynote speakers and invited speakers for some international and national conferences, seminars, and workshops. In the research area, besides being an evaluator for research proposals of his university’s academic staff, he has been awarded more than USD80,000 research grants for his interest in Effective School, Educational Leadership, School Finance, and Principalship. Therefore, all experiences of him are put in the shape of a journal namely Journal of Educational Leadership by appointing him as an editor besides being an editorial board for some international journals like Bannu University Research Journal in Education, Journal of Economics and Finance, European Journal of Educational and Social Sciences and International Journal of Education Teaching and Learning.    

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PROF. DR. CHE ZARRINA BINTI SA'ARI

Che Zarrina Sa’ari, who graduated from the University of Malaya (Bachelor's and Master's degrees) and Edinburgh University (PhD), is currently the Professor at the Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia, working in the Department of Aqidah and Islamic Thought. She served several times as the Head of the Department of Aqidah and Islamic Thought and as the Deputy Director (Development and Research) at the same Academy, and currently she is the Deputy Director (Research) until December 2024. She was also a visiting scholar at Leiden University (2004) and Edinburgh University (2010). Dr. Che Zarrina’s broad academic and research interests involve Sufism, Islamic Psychospiritual, Islamic Psychotherapy, and Islamic Ethics. She has produced over 300 publications, including books, chapters in books, articles in journals, short articles in mass media, and conference proceedings that were presented nationally and internationally. Dr. Che Zarrina has been invited many times by national as well as international universities to deliver lectures or talks on Islamic Psychospiritual and Psychotherapy. She has also been invited to be a keynote speaker, plenary speaker, or invited speaker in seminars, conferences, and workshops nationally and internationally in her area of expertise. She has presented papers in seminars and conferences and delivered motivational talks as well as religious talks to the public from time to time, and written short articles in magazines and newspapers. Dr. Che Zarrina has produced about 50 master's students and 53 doctorate students in her field. The graduates, national and international, became her successors in the dissemination and enhancement of their expertise and have contributed to the academic world, government, and community, especially in spiritual and mental well-being. In research, she has been awarded about 105 internal and external research grants, for instance, ERGS, FRGS, MAIS Fatwa Research Grant, IIRG, MRUN, JAKIM Fatwa Research Grant, RACE, USM, JAIS Fatwa Research Grant, GP LPPKN, UMRG Project, and UMRG Programme. The outputs of the research could be seen through the graduation of graduate research assistants, publications, curriculum designs, and reviews for new courses or module improvements. In addition, those outputs have also been utilized to assist government institutions. For example, in developing modules, manuals, guidelines, policies, and fatwas. Furthermore, many of the outputs of Islamic Psychospiritual and Psychotherapy have been applied and carried out publicly by the community and non-governmental associations (NGO). To impart this knowledge to the relevant communities, Dr. Che Zarrina has been invited to facilitate the training of the trainers (ToT) workshops and intervention sessions that are usually organized by the government, such as JAKIM, Malaysian Ministry of Health, Jabatan Perpaduan Negara dan Intergrasi Nasional, state religious councils and departments, non-governmental organizations, and the public. In the professional field, based on her expertise and involvement with the stakeholders, she has gained their trust and has been appointed to one of JAKIM’s prestigious committees as an Expert Panel for Aqidah (PPA) with terms of reference to respond to current issues of `aqidah and school of thought in society and give an initial view on the issuance of a fatwa for Muzakarah Jawatankuasa Fatwa, Majlis Kebangsaan Bagi Hal Ehwal Ugama Islam Malaysia (MKI). She has been involved in various committees and has been appointed as an expert panel, among others in Expert Panel for Programme Standards: Islamic Studies by Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA), Expert Panel of the Field of Aqidah and Sufism, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Top Management Committee for KSKCare Centre JAKIM, and Dini Curriculum Development for Ministry of Education Malaysia. In academic linkage, Dr. Che Zarrina has been involved as an academic advisor for several local universities, journals editor-in-Chief, advisory board member, member of journal editorial boards, postgraduate external examiner, and member of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). She is the Editor in Chief for AFKAR: Journal of Aqidah & Islamic Thought, indexed in WoS-ESCI and SCOPUS. She has also been appointed Editor in Chief for Qalbu: International Journal of Sufism published by PERTAMA, the advisory board for the Journal of Islamic Theology Pakistan and the Journal of Islamic Research Turkey, and has become a reviewer for WoS and SCOPUS journals. She also contributes to society through her involvement with several national and international non-government organizations (NGO) such as the Islamic Psychospiritual Association Malaysia (IPSA) as Deputy President, Majlis Dakwah Negara, Persatuan Kaunseling Syarie Malaysia, and the International Association of Islamic Psychology. She has obtained several certificates as a certified practitioner, such as Psychological First Aid, Mental Health Coach, and Crisis Intervention and Trauma Counseling. Among her significant contributions to the country is her involvement from the beginning in setting up the KSKCare Centre@MTMZA JAKIM which is a community referral center that provides professional and free services to the community.  Since then, she, who leads the Islamic Psychospiritual Team, has always performed training of the trainers (ToT) managed by JAKIM and others for related persons.

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TS. DR. NOORHIDAYAH BINTI MAMAT

Dr. Hidayah obtained her first degree in Bachelor of Science with Islamic Studies specialized in Ecology and Biodiversity from Universiti Malaya in 2009, under Public Service Department Malaysia scholarship. She then continued her interest in Science Biology at the same university under the National Science Fellowship (NSF), Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation scholarship where she obtained a Master of Science in Molecular Taxonomy in 2013. Afterward, she worked as a Research Assistant to expand her experience in the research world before she continued her PhD. In the year 2015, she received a scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia to pursue her PhD focusing on Bio-ecological and taxonomic studies of Malaysian dragonflies at Universiti Malaya. While completing her PhD, she becomes a recipient of short-term International Program Associates (IPAs) under the International Joint Graduate School Program RIKEN, by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Wako-Shi, Japan in 2016. RIKEN is Japan's largest comprehensive research institution renowned for high-quality research in a diverse range of scientific disciplines. While carrying out her PhD project at RIKEN, she was engaged in the Enzyme Research Team, Biomass Engineering Research Division, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science. The research she has conducted at RIKEN to date aims to demonstrate the micro joint wing properties in the suborder Zygoptera using combined techniques of laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) to explore resilin elasticity investigations and analyze of protein components. In 2018, she completed her PhD and started her career as a part-timer lecturer, and afterward, she has been appointed as Senior Lecturer in 2020 under Ecology Biodiversity Programme, Institute Science Biological Science, Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya. She currently teaches Animal Behaviour & Ethology and Animal Structure, Function & Physiology subjects to undergraduate students. She has vast experience in teaching and learning starting as a demonstrator back in 2013 and involved in immense research field preliminary back to 2010 and became a reviewer in several peer-reviewed and high impact journals such as PLoS ONE.

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