Professor Dr Hong Ching Goh, an interdisciplinary social scientist, studies human-environment interactions. Initially focused on urban planning and nature-based tourism, her approach has evolved to encompass sustainability, relevance, inclusion, and impact of scales. Her research inquiry explores how diverse communities benefit from nature, e.g., livelihood, health and wellbeing and intangible values. She investigates the threats and constraints posed by various anthropogenic actions and governance systems on the environment, and devises strategies for its safeguarding. This focus stems from her academic training in urban planning, tourism planning, and geography. Her research, with wide-ranging applications in urbanized environments, resource-rich regions and protected areas, draws inspiration from her fieldwork in Sabah since 2005, which has then driven her interdisciplinary coastal research in Southeast Asia. Currently attached to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Built Environment, Prof. Goh also leads the Humanities and Social Sciences Group of the Malaysia National Antarctic Research Centre. She's a registered town planner with the Malaysian Institute of Planners and the Board of Town Planners Malaysia.  Prof Goh serves as the country coordinator for ForUm, a DAAD-funded network for Urban Futures in Southeast Asia that connects SEA and German experts since 2018. She also continues to serve on GYA membership selection and output review committees. Her commitment to interdisciplinary research has been significantly influenced by being a recipient of the MIT-UTM Malaysian Sustainable Cities Program Fellowship and the DAAD Doctoral Scholarship Awards where she conducted her doctoral study in the Center of Development Research (ZEF), as well as her memberships in ASEAN Science Leadership Program and Global Young Academy (GYA).  Since 2009, she has secured RM6.9 million in research grants, including RM4.95 million internationally. As a co-investigator, she helped secure the GBP6.4 million Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) grant. Her contributions to interdisciplinary research, particularly in marine environments and coastal communities, have earned recognition. This recognition was highlighted by the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur in 2021, in conjunction with International Women's Day and Commonwealth Day. In the same year, she was invited to join the UK Minister of Science, Amanda Solloway, and Professor Melanie Austen (University of Plymouth, UK) to discuss climate change impacts on marine environments and coastal communities in the Blue Communities program. In 2022, she was featured among the '100 Women Scientists in Global Polar Research. In 2024, she is appointed as the DAAD Research Ambassador in Malaysia in recognition of her outstanding contribution towards furthering the academic & scientific cooperation between Malaysia and Germany and awarded the Top Research Scientists Malaysia Award by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.   To date, she has published more than 65 peer-reviewed articles, 30 book chapters and books, and other 40 publications. She has supervised nine PhD students and three master students to completion and oversees 10 ongoing students. 

I am currently a Lecturer at the Department of Arabic Language and Middle Eastern Languages, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya (UM), Malaysia. My academic and professional trajectory has been shaped by sustained engagements with the Arabic language and linguistics, translation, interpreting, and the pragmatics of cross-cultural communication. I am now reading for a PhD in Interpreting Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia, where I explore the intricacies of (im)politeness in Arabic-English simultaneous interpreting. My research investigates how interpreters navigate shifts in (im)politeness strategies under real-time cognitive constraints. Positioned at the intersection of pragmatics, interpreting studies, cognitive linguistics, and cognitive psychology, this work aims to illuminate the interplay between linguistic (im)politeness, real-time cross-cultural mediation, and the psychological demands of interpreting in high-stakes settings. This doctoral inquiry builds upon my MA in Linguistics from UM, where I examined implicature in the Quran through a pragmatic lens, sharpening my sensitivity to inferencing, intention, and context in meaning-making. My foundational training began with a BA in Arabic Language and Linguistics from Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco, where I graduated with distinction (comparable to summa cum laude in Western academic systems) and was honoured as the university's Best Student in 2019. These academic foundations laid the critical groundwork for my current scholarly focus. Beyond academia, I am a certified translator with the Institut Terjemahan & Buku Malaysia (ITBM; Malaysian Institute of Translation & Books), with extensive experience in translating, editing, and proofreading scholarly texts, theses, and books. I welcome insights most notably from language service providers and industry stakeholders to support research on interpreter ethics, translator/interpreter training, and discourse in professional translation and interpreting contexts.

Dr. Loh Kar Hoe (K.-H. L.) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences (IOES), University of Malaya. He graduated with a B.Sc. majoring in aquaculture before pursuing his research in fish reproductive for his M.Sc. in NTOU, Taiwan. He obtained his Ph.D. in Fisheries Science from the NTOU in 2009 for doctoral work on taxonomy and molecular phylogeny of moray eels (Mureanidae). After his Ph.D., he spent one year at the Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taiwan as a postdoctoral researcher. He joined IOES July 2011 as a research fellow. He’s team have discovery eight new species eels (Gymnothorax pseudokidako 2021, Gymnothorax pseudomelanosomatus 2015, Neenchelys gracilis 2015, Pylorobranchus hoi 2012, Gymnothorax melanosomatus 2011, Uropterygius oligospondylus 2008, Gymnothorax taiwanensis 2008, Gymnothorax shaoi 2007), and a lot of new recorded fishes from Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Japan, and Taiwan. In addition to studying Malaysian fish otoliths, he is also working on the fisheries assessment work on sharks and rays. A total of 47 ISI articles have been published, and 26 technical reports of the IUCN Sciaenidae Red List assessments in 2020. He has collaborative research on the genetic diversity, population genetics of marine organisms; Reef fish diversity and abundance in Malaysian water through DNA barcoding and eDNA in Malaysia. Another study focuses on microplastics in the gill and stomach of fish. He recently secured a research grant to “Resolving systematics of Cephalopods using morphological and molecular approaches in Malaysia”, and “Environment DNA matebarcoding illuminates the diversity of sharks and rays” funded by WWF-Malaysia.