Dr Cheah graduated from Universiti Sains Malaysia with a BSc (Hons) in 2003 and a MSc in 2007. He obtained his PhD in Oceanography from University of Tasmania in Australia in 2012 under a scholarship from the Australian Government’s Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre. After submitting his PhD thesis in 2011, he was offered a postdoctoral position at Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany where he lived in Bremerhaven until 2013. He then moved to Taiwan in 2014 after securing a two-year Academia Sinica Postdoctoral Scholar award. In 2016, he was again awarded another Academia Sinica Postdoctoral Scholar award and spent another two years at Academia Sinica. In the same year, he won the best oral presentation award for the Asian Region category at the 34th Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research Open Science Conference. Since 2018, he has been a Senior Lecturer at University of Malaya’s Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences. His current research focuses on the changes in the atmosphere, land and ocean, and how these changes are affecting the oceans and marine organisms. He has participated in various international research voyages on board Australian, German, and Taiwanese research vessels including four in the Southern Ocean, two in the South China Sea, and one each in the North Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Dr Lim Quan Hziung is serving as an Endocrinologist and Medical Lecturer in Universiti Malaya (UM) / Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC). He obtained his basic and postgraduate medical degrees, as well as Endocrinology subspecialty training at UM.  He is a committee member of the UMMC Diabetes Care Unit, where he treats patients with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes, and coordinates delivery of comprehensive diabetes care.  He has supervised numerous masters and undergraduate medical students and is actively involved in multiple research projects. His research interests includes type 1 and type 2 diabetes, population metabolic health, obesity and its related comorbidities. He has published in multiple international medical journals including The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews, Journal of Diabetes Investigation among others. His work has been presented at international conferences including the United States Endocrine Society annual conference (US ENDO), ASEAN Federation of Endocrine Society (AFES) Congress, and the International Diabetes Epidemiology Group biennial symposium.  He is regularly engaged for talks with healthcare workers and the public to share on topics on Endocrinology and Diabetes. He has been invited for national media appearances, and has had articles published in various local media. 

Mala Rajo Sathian is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies and the founding coordinator of the Thai studies programme, both at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. She previously held visiting research affiliations at Prince of Songkla University, Pattani campus, Thailand, and as a Fulbright Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, US. Her areas of research include Thailand, south Thailand and north Malaysia, relating to ethnicity and marginalisation, diasporas, conflict, governance and histories of nation building. Her publications include: Siamese in Malaysia: Beyond sixty years of heritage (2018) and various articles and chapters on ethnic minorities, identity, conflict and methodology in area studies.  She hopes to advance a message of peace and tolerance towards minority communities living in multicultural Southeast Asia through her research and writing.