Dr Siti Hajar is a Professor at the Department of Social Administration and Justice, University of Malaya. Her core area of expertise is Social Policy. Over the 20 years, she has been involved in developing and promoting the teaching, learning and research opportunities in the field of social policy and social work. She teaches social policy, social welfare system, social planning, social evaluation and monitoring, research methodology and social theories. Her research interests focus on social care programs for the at-risk children in Malaysia, children well-being and social development for vulnerable social groups.  

Wenn-Chyau Lee received his BSc (Hons) degree in Biomedical Sciences from University of Malaya, Malaysia in year 2011, and graduated with his PhD in Medical Sciences from University of Malaya in year 2014. Subsequently, he joined Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN, A*STAR) as a research fellow in Laurent Renia’s Laboratory. He was appointed as SIgN fellow after receiving OF-YIRG grant awarded by the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) of Singapore in year 2018. He joined the newly formed A*STAR ID Labs as an investigator in year 2021. Subsequently, he joined the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya as a senior lecturer. Currently, he is also an adjunct investigator in A*STAR ID Labs, Singapore. As a parasitologist, he has involved in studies encompassing a number of medically important parasites such as the malaria causative agent Plasmodium spp., Toxoplasma gondii that can cause birth defects, Brugia pahangi that can cause symptomatic zoonotic filariasis, as well as several medically important vectors. His main research interest revolves around the immuno-pathobiology of malaria. He has been investigating and deciphering the roles of rosetting (a phenomenon where a Plasmodium-infected red blood cell is stably adhered to uninfected red blood cells, forming a flower-like structure called ‘rosette’) in the pathogenesis of malaria. Besides, he is looking into the potential of applying biocontrol strategy to eliminate different vector borne diseases. He has worked as a research fieldworker in different places including the Thai-Burmese Border, China, peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo. As different laboratory settings are equipped differently, he enjoys adapting and improvising facilities available in the field sites to conduct experiments. Currently, he is also the facility coordinator of the insectary and arthropod containment level 2 (ACL2) research unit in the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. To date, he has published (as first/ corresponding author) in a number of reputable journals such as Blood, EBioMedicine, eLife, Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Microbiology, and Trends in Parasitology. Besides working as a reviewer for many scientific journals and grant evaluation committees, he is also an editorial board member of Frontiers in Microbiology.

Ir. Dr. Adeline Chua Seak May is a Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Malaya. A PhD graduate from The University of Tokyo, Japan, she specialises in biological nutrients removal and resource recovery. She has published more than 40 papers in ISI-indexed journals and has supervised over 15 PhD and master students. Adeline is also a Chartered Engineer of IChemE, UK and a Professional Engineer of BEM, Malaysia. She works closely with the local wastewater treatment operators to improve the energy efficiency and performance of the wastewater treatment plants. The academia-industry research collaboration has earned her the award of international funding Newton Fund Impact Scheme. Her international research partners include NIES, Yokohama National University (Japan), SCELSE (Singapore), Kasetsart University (Thailand), and Newcastle University (UK). Adeline was also a visiting research fellow at The University of Tokyo (2012) and Newcastle University (2016-2019). Her current research interests are related to the development of sustainable wastewater treatment process in the tropical climates, microbial ecology in tropical wastewater treatment plants, and resource recovery (biopolymer, biochemicals, biofuel and nutrients) from agro-industrial waste(water) streams.