Dr. Sabzali Musa Kahn was born in Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia. He graduated with a degree in visual arts from Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang. He then pursued his Masters in Education from Universiti Putra Malaysia and he obtained his Doctorate (Ph.D) in Architecture Studies from Universiti Putra Malaysia. He started his career as a consultant in government and corporate sectors. He was one of the committee who founded Universiti Industri Selangor, Malaysia (UNISEL). In addition, he was appointed as the secretariat member to develop the master action plan for the Ministry of Unity and Development Community, Malaysia. His participation in various major exhibitions organized by universities, galleries, state and National Art Gallery has greatly enhanced his knowledge and experience as an artist. He is also involved with visual arts research, theatre and workshops in the aspect of creative teaching for the pre-school children, people with disabilities and in curriculum development of visual art studies at the university level. He has won several competitions in art and design. Some of the awards obtained were Main Incentive gift from Art Media exhibition 2006, Special Award Art Media VIII,2009 and Special award Art Media IX,2010. He is the gold medalist for Innovation and Creativity EXPO 2010, University of Malaya, Malaysia. In 2015, he won the national gold medal at Innovation and Invention Competition Through Exhibition (iCompEx) and Cahaya Kasih President’s Award from Maybank, Malaysia. His research on the use of new materials and techniques in visual art production has won him Excellence University of Malaya Award for 2015 under the Arts and Creativity Category. He held position as the head jury for batik art drawing category at the international level which was organized by Rehabilitation Council Malaysia (MCR). He represented Malaysia for visual art category and was the first Malaysian selected to be head jury in the 8th International Abilympic 2011 at Seoul,Korea. His ongoing effort and contribution has brought gold medal to Malaysia in the International Abilympic 2011. This has been a great achievement for the country at the international level to have won a gold medal for the last 32 years. Dr. Sabzali active participation in the social work at local and international level has made great impact to the society. Creativity activities and education based on visual art are incorporated into his social works. He was the Visual Art Coordinator and Deputy Director (undergraduate) at the Cultural Centre, University Malaya. Currently, he is the Dean at Academy of Malay Studies, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Dr Reena Rajasuriar is a Clinical Pharmacist by training and an Associate Professor at the Department of Medicine, University Malaya (UM).  She also holds an adjunct position as a Fellow at the Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Melbourne, Australia.  She leads the research unit at the Department of Medicine, UM and is Head of the Immunotherapeutics Laboratory (ITL), a core immunology research laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine, UM.    Dr Rajasuriar completed her PhD in Immunogenetics at Monash University, Australia and now leads a translational research program in HIV and Aging at the Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS (CERiA).  Her training as a clinical and basic scientist has afforded Dr Rajasuriar the expertise to perform multidisciplinary research spanning basic, clinical and implementation studies.  Her research focuses on understanding drivers of accelerated aging in people living with HIV and its interaction with functional aging outcomes.  She is also invested in understanding how integrated HIV care can best be implemented in resource limited settings to promote healthy aging.   Dr Rajasuriar has published extensively on the intersection of HIV and aging, and is an international leader in advancing the knowledge in this field, having delivered multiple plenaries at international forums, co-authored multiple opinion pieces and viewpoints as well as contributed to the development of consensus statements around this subject matter.  Together with members of her team, she was instrumental in developing the first ECHO training program on HIV and Aging for the Asia Pacific region to advance capacity building for health professionals providing care for people with HIV.  She is also the Principal Investigator of the only HIV and aging cohort in the Asia Pacific region studying aging from a multidimensional perspective, with over a decade of follow up (2014-2024).   Dr Rajasuriar’s work is funded by various national and international funding bodies including the National Institutes of Health, US, the American Foundation for AIDS Research and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia.  She has received multiple accolades including the Australia-APEC Women in Research Fellowship (2015), the Loreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Malaysia Fellowship (2016), the IAS Research-for-Cure Academy Fellowship (2018), the CIRA International Visiting Fellowship to Yale (2019), the Asian Universities Alliance (AUA) Scholars Award (2023) and most recently, the Fulbright Malaysian Scholar Award (2024). 

As a statistician and data scientist with a foundation in statistical inference, I have expanded my expertise in time series and forecasting, mortality modelling, spatial statistics, functional data analysis, Bayesian statistics, machine learning and multivariate statistics through extensive research. I have collaborated with physicists, biologists, computer scientists, and experts from various fields to advance interdisciplinary initiatives. I have also conducted training on applied statistics and time series. Outside academia, I am trained in Indian Carnatic music (National champion), completed Grade 8 Piano from the Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music, London, and play various musical instruments. I find a close relationship between being musically inclined and mathematics.