Dr. Mumtaz Aini Alivi is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Media and Communication Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya. She earned her Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) with a double major in (i) Language and Malay Linguistics and (ii) Journalism from Universiti Putra Malaysia. She later obtained her Master of Corporate Communication and Doctor of Philosophy (Mass Communication) from the same university. Her research interests primarily focus on Journalism, Broadcasting, News, Online Media, Political Communication, and Mass Communication. Apart from her academic qualifications, Dr. Mumtaz has extensive experience in journalism, news broadcasting, and media industry management. She was a media practitioner for twenty-two years at Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM), a government television station. For almost twenty years, she was attached to the News and Current Affairs Department, where she held multiple roles, including Broadcast Journalist, Newscaster, News Editor, and News Producer. Throughout her career, she was involved in various high-profile assignments, including accompanying the Prime Minister and other national leaders for international news coverage, conducting live news broadcasts from Parliament, and reporting on other significant national events, in addition to daily news coverage. After completing her PhD, Dr. Mumtaz transitioned to a different role at RTM, serving as Assistant Director in the Policy and Research Section. She later assumed the same role in the Strategic Planning Section before being transferred to the Quality Control for Creative Content Unit as an Evaluation Officer. These three divisions operate under the Strategic Development Department, where she contributed for an additional two years before leaving RTM. With over two decades of experience in the media industry—particularly in television news, along with some experience in radio and media management—Dr. Mumtaz has made significant contributions to the field. Her dedication and passion for journalism were recognized when she won the Best Broadcast Journalist Award at the national level in 2001. In addition to her industry experience, Dr. Mumtaz has been appointed by several organizations for various consultancy and evaluation roles. She has served as a panel judge for the prestigious Malaysian Journalism Award, organized by the Malaysia Press Institute (MPI). She was also a panel member for Pitching Evaluation (Private) and a panel member for Screening (Syndicated) for RTM programs. In 2021, Dr. Mumtaz transitioned from media practice to academia, joining the University of Malaya as a Senior Lecturer. She embraced this new career path with a bigger mission—to contribute to nation-building by sharing her knowledge and experience to shape future leaders in journalism and media.

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 Translation and Interpreting (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 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.