Dr. Aqsa Isa is a Senior Lecturer based in the Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya (UM), Malaysia and Research Associate at Rabdan Academy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE).Her teaching and scholarly interests are focused on the areas of Critical Discourse Studies, Social Semiotics and Multimodality. She is interested in multidisciplinary work and research involving (violent) extremism and (de) radicalisation, especially on social media, as well as religion and politics, among others. As a linguist, she has looked at various violent extremist and far right propaganda materials, exploring and understanding the ideologies and linguistic strategies used to garner support and attract potential followers. She is also exploring the recruitment, radicalisation as well as the reintegration processes, in which she has worked closely with former detainees, their family members and various local and international agencies. In addition, Dr. Aqsa has been invited as a speaker and resource person in various Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE) programmes by agencies such as the Southeast Asia Regional Centre for Counter-Terrorism (SEARCCT), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs (Security Division), Malaysian public universities, civil society organisations, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the SEA Women Peacebuilders Network.  Currently, she is also the Programme Coordinator for the Bachelor of English Language and Linguistics. Her tasks include overseeing accreditation processes and curriculum reviews, coordinating class schedules, and ensuring the wellbeing of students in the programme. She also engages with local and international institutions to build academic collaborations. As part of her role, she provides academic guidance and supports continuous programme improvement to align with current educational and industry needs. Recent publication:‘Dust Off the Dirt of Laziness and Break the Shackles of the Dunya’: The Language of Female Extremists in Daesh Propaganda Magazines, Journal of Gender and Language. Forthcoming publications: 1. Media Framing of Violent Extremism Cases in Malaysia: A Discursive News Values Analysis (Journal Article) 2. Psychological Impacts of News Reporting on Individuals Arrested for Violent Extremism in Malaysia and Their Families (Journal Article) 3. "As Long As Nobody’s Hurt”: A Digital Discourse on Justifying Quran Burning from an Argumentation Perspective (Journal Article) 4. From Delegitimisation to Conditional Legitimacy: Media Slant and Multimodal Framings of Quran-Burning Protests (Journal Article) 5. Stance-taking in Online Far-Right Discourse Communities: Anti-immigration and Identity Politics (Journal Article)

Dr. Chong Wu Ling is a senior lecturer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. Her areas of expertise include ethnic Chinese studies and Southeast Asian politics. She is the author of Chinese Indonesians in post-Suharto Indonesia: Democratisation and ethnic minorities (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2018). The book explores the role of ethnic Chinese Indonesians in shaping the democratisation process as well as their position in post-Suharto Indonesia across business, politics and civil society. She is also the co-author of Kaedah penyelidikan dan panduan penulisan [Research methods and guidance for writing, in Malay] (Kuala Lumpur: Universiti Malaya Press, 2016) (with Professor Dr. Sivachandralingam Sundara Raja and Dr. Noraini Mohamed Hassan). Wu Ling has published articles and book reviews in Asian Ethnicity, Pacific Affairs, Southeast Asian Studies, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (JSEAS), JATI—Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Sejarah, Sarjana, Borneo Research Journal (BRJ), Jebat: Malaysian Journal of History, Politics & Strategic Studies, Journal of Chinese Overseas, and International Journal of China Studies.

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).