Born in a small town - Teluk Intan, Perak, Dr Limi Lee became a surgeon in 2013. She is a surgeon specialising in Vascular and Transplant Surgery. She underwent Vascular Surgery Fellowship in Malaysia and did further training at Monash Medical Centre, Australia. During her fellowship at Monash Medical Centre, she completed second fellowship in Renal and Pancreatic Transplant Surgery. She is also an academic surgeon with special interest in research on diabetic foot ulcer, venous thromboembolism prevention and dialysis access. She was one of the authors involved in the Asian venous thromboembolism prevention guidelines, which was published in 2012 and 2017. 

Shalini Nadaswaran holds a PhD in English specializing in African Women's Literature from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (UNSW). Her PhD was supervised by eminent postcolonial expert, Professor Bill Ashcroft, exploring Igbo women writers and contemporary Nigeria. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in English and Master of Arts in English at the English Department, University of Malaya. Her research interest considers the constant evolving representations of women in local and global spaces. She is currently a Senior Lecturer with the English Department, University of Malaya and has worked on a research project which examines cultural formations. She has published in the field of African literature and women’s literature in journals such as African Literature Today, Matatu, Wasafiri and Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. She has also contributed book chapters to various book projects. She serves as a peer reviewer for a number of journals, two of which are ISI and Scopus cited. While her primary focus falls under the remit of African (Women’s) literature, she also has additional interests in research that explores modern day slavery, literature and injustice, and the figure of the ‘child’ in postcolonial literature. She welcomes research students working on any area in women’s literature, African literature and postcolonial women’s literature to contact her.

Started his research career in the think tank sector, Dr. Lee Chee Leong (Karl) is attracted to the rise of non-traditional diplomacy in the international order today. Such appeal has taken Dr. Lee into new research horizons that started with his Monash University's doctoral research on the Chinese sub-state diplomacy in China-ASEAN economic cooperation. With constructive supervision by Professor Helen Nesadurai and Associate Professor Kuik Cheng Chwee, Dr. Lee completed his doctoral thesis that unravels how a faraway and least developed sub-state of Guangxi managed to overcome its own hurdles, navigate the complexities within the Chinese state and become the frontline actor in China-ASEAN economic cooperation. Following his doctoral completion, Dr. Lee's research on non-traditional diplomacy has expanded into Taiwan’s quasi-state diplomacy in Southeast Asia. Such quest has led him spending at great length in comprehending the concept of soft power, a concept that finds its relevance to Taiwan, which has no official diplomatic with Southeast Asia but is heavily connected to the region and has to rely on soft power in its engagements with these Southeast Asian nations. Taking Malaysia as the first case study of Taiwan's soft power in the region, Dr. Lee is developing the third intervening variable correlating both Taiwanese soft power resources and outcomes, in his course of providing a dynamical explanation for such phenomenon. For the coming years, his research focus and publications will be on the different areas featuring Taiwan-Malaysia and Taiwan-Southeast Asia cooperation such as digital social innovation (DSI) for climate change, industry-based education/training programmes, smart cities, tourism, digital democracy, agriculture, public health and medicine, ornamental aquaculture and aquascape. To date, Dr. Lee was the recipient of several scholarships and fellowships in Malaysia and overseas: University of Malaya’s Graduate Fellowship (2010-2011); Monash University’s Merit Scholarship (2016-2019); Chinese Government Scholarship (2018-2019); and Taiwan Fellowship (2020). Prior to his appointment as Senior Lecturer at the Institute of China Studies (ICS), he was the Visiting Scholar at Guangxi University for Nationalities (GXUN) (2018-10992019), Taiwan Fellow at National Chengchi University (NCCU) (2020) and Associate Fellow at ICS UM (2016-2019).He welcomes any potential PhD candidate who would like to work on Taiwan-Southeast Asia relations, Taiwan's soft power in Southeast Asia and Taiwan-Malaysia DSI cooperation for climate change. He is also willing to discuss with potential doctoral candidates on proposals related to the Chinese sub-state (provincial) diplomacy toward ASEAN, China's soft power in ASEAN, Southeast Asian sub-state diplomacy, comparative cases of sub-state diplomacy around the world and conceptual innovation of sub-state diplomacy as well as soft power.