Muhammad Faizal A. Ghani is an academic in the Department of Educational Management, Administration, and Policy, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. His expertise lies in Educational Leadership, with a focus on Educational Management and Administration, as well as School Finance. He contributes to society by sharing his academic knowledge, skills, values, and professionalism through scholarly publications—having authored nine academic books and more than two hundred research articles. His latest book is entitled “School Leadership in the 21st Century.” In addition to his publications,  Muhammad Faizal has been invited as a keynote and plenary speaker at various international and national conferences, seminars, and workshops. In the area of research, he serves as an evaluator of research proposals at his university and has secured international, private, and government research grants exceeding USD 80,000 for studies related to Effective Schools, Educational Leadership, School Finance, and Principalship. His extensive experience is further reflected in his editorial contributions. He currently serves as the Editor of the Journal of Educational Leadership and as a member of the editorial boards for several international journals, including the Bannu University Research Journal in Education, the Journal of Economics and Finance, the European Journal of Educational and Social Sciences, and the International Journal of Education, Teaching, and Learning.  

Edmund Terence Gomez Gomez is Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics & Administration, Universiti Malaya. He specializes in state-market relations and the linkages between politics, public policies, and enterprise development -- a subject on which he has published extensively, writing not only for academia but also more widely.  He has held appointments as Visiting Professor at: the School of International Relations & Pacific Studies at the University of California-San Diego, USA (2014-2015); the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, USA (2013-2014); and at Kobe University, Japan (May-August 2002). Other academic appointments include Visiting Fellowships at: the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Denmark (October-November 2004); the Australian National University, Canberra (February 2002); and at the Asian Studies Department, Murdoch University, Australia (January-December 1993). He was also Senior Research Fellow at the Department of East Asian Studies, Leeds University, United Kingdom from 1996-1999. From 2005-2008, Terence served as Project Manager and Research Coordinator of the programme area ‘Identities, Conflict and Cohesion’ at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in Geneva, Switzerland. He has undertaken various research projects and convened numerous international conferences–among others, on political-business linkages in East Asia; the growth of national and transnational ethnic Chinese enterprise; the history of Chinese communities and their enterprises in Australia, Britain and Southeast Asia; ethnic conflict and social cohesion in Asia; equity distribution and government intervention in Malaysia –all of which have received funding from various local and global agencies, including the Sasakawa, Sumitomo and Toyota Foundations of Japan, the Department of Education and Training in Australia, the Christensen Fund (USA), the British Academy, and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) of the United Kingdom. He serves on the editorial board and advisory committee of the following international journals: East Asia: An Internationaal Quarterly, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia and Asian Journal of Comparative Politics. He is also editor of the 'Chinese Worlds' Series and the 'Malaysian Studies' Series for Routledge, London & New York.

Dr. Lai is a haematopathologist with area of interest in both adult and childhood haemato-oncology. After earning her Master’s in Pathology (Haematology) in 2022, she gained experience as a specialist in Sarawak General Hospital (SGH), Kuching. She helped in establishing new services such as Flow Cytometry for Leukaemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma as well as BCR-ABL1 quantification for Chronic Myeloid Luekaeia in SGH. In December 2024, she joined the Department of Pathology, University Malaya.