Abrizah Abdullah is currently an Honorary Professor in the Department of Library & Information Science, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya (UM). Her substantial academic and research experience is enhanced by her profound dedication to teaching, particularly to postgraduates. Notably, she has successfully supervised 22 PhD students in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS), contributing significantly to their academic or professional journeys. Abrizah graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Engineering from Temple University, Philadelphia. She continued her pursuit of knowledge at UM, where she earned both her Masters and PhD degrees in LIS. Her remarkable journey in UM began in 2000, after a decade of teaching experience and as a teacher librarian at the secondary school level. Before transitioning to her academic career at UM, she worked as a librarian at the Educational Planning and Research Division (EPRD) of the Ministry of Education. Her LIS research interests are notably diverse, encompassing digital libraries, information behavior, scholarly communication, bibliometrics and scientometrics. Prof. Abrizah's dedication to research is evident through her leadership of her own research group in Informetrics and Scholarly Publishing. Under the mentorship of Professor Zainab Awang Ngah, her earlier work with this research group played a pivotal role in the establishment of significant academic platforms and digital repositories. Notably, their collaborative efforts gave birth to the Malaysian journal hosting platform, MyJurnal, and the national citation indexing system, MyCite, in 2011. Her contributions in this domain earned her the position of Deputy Director of the Malaysian Citation Centre (MCC) and advisory panel membership at the MCC, within the Department of Higher Education. She is presently engaged in the planning of the National Knowledge Infrastructure for the Ministry and is a member of the Advisory Board of the National Library of Malaysia. In addition to her academic roles, Abrizah serves as a Senior Academic Associate at CIBER Research Ltd., UK. She is also currently a Principal Investigator in an international research project funded by the Alfred Sloan Foundation. This groundbreaking research (Harbingers project) examines the scholarly communication behaviors of Early Career Researchers across nine countries, including China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the USA. Abrizah's editorial leadership shines through as the Chief Editor of the Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, a publication indexed in both the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Scopus. She actively participates in the scholarly community as an author, member of international advisory boards, and a reviewer for influential journals in LIS. With about 120 SSCI-indexed articles to her name, her expertise in scholarly publishing has made her a sought-after speaker at numerous talks and seminars. Her contributions have been instrumental in deepening the understanding of how scholarly publishing impacts research and education. As a strong supporter of Open Science, she is actively involved in important roles both in Malaysia and internationally. In Malaysia, she leads the Working Group on Capacity Building and Awareness for the Malaysian Open Science Platform (MOSP) within the Malaysian Open Science Alliance. On a global scale, she is in the Steering Committee for the International Science Council's project on Open Science and the Future of Scientific Publishing. She is also a member of the DOAB (Directory of Open Access Book) Scientific Committee and contributes her expertise to the ASEAN Citation Index (ACI) Steering Committee. Prof. Abrizah served as the Dean of the Institute for Advanced Studies UM, a position she had held since January 2022 until she officially retired from public services in September 2024. Her previous leadership experience includes serving as the Dean at the Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology and the Dean of the Institute of Postgraduate Studies, where she and her team were responsible for the management of postgraduate education and the oversight of full research programs at the university. Abrizah's expertise and unwavering dedication to advancing scholarly communication in Malaysia have earned her recognition in academia. Her commitment to LIS education, leadership, and research has had a profound impact on the field, not only in Malaysia but also globally.

Azirah Hashim is Professor Emeritus in the English Language Department, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya. She has held several leadership positions including Executive Director of the Asia-Europe Institute (2015-2020), Director of the Centre for ASEAN Regionalism (2015-2018), Dean of the Humanities Research Cluster (2010-2015), Chairperson of the Research Ethics Committee (2013-2015) and Dean and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya (2003-2009, 1996-2002). Currently, she is a member of the steering group for the ASEAN Higher Education Community of Practice, RIHED-SHARE and a member of the Standing Working Group of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Education representing the Asia-Europe Institute. Her research interests include English in multilingual contexts, internationalisation of higher education in ASEAN and Academic and Professional Discourse. Publications include English in Southeast Asia and ASEAN: Transformation of Language Habitats, Routledge co-authored with Gerhard Leitner (2021),  Communicating with Asia: the Future of English as a Global Language , Cambridge University Press edited with Gerhard Leitner and Hans-Georg Wolf (2016, 2019) and articles in journals such as English Today, Discourse Studies and Multilingua. She was President of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA - https://aila.info/) from 2021 to 2024 and is Founding President of the Malaysian Association of Applied Linguistics. In addition, she is an honorary life member and in the executive committee of the Asia Pacific Languages for Specific Purposes and Professional Communication Association and is a former executive committee member of the International Association of Forensic Linguists. She was on the MyExpert committee at the Ministry of Higher Education involved in capacity building in higher education projects in Cambodia and Laos and was project leader of an Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education 'Building research capacity in Malaysia and Laos' (2017-2021).  She also headed the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence: ASEAN and the EU in Dialogue (2017-2021).  In 2009, she was awarded the Georg Forster Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany for a research stay at Free University Berlin and is a Fellow of the Foundation. In 2020, she was a recipient of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute Research Fellowship, Trinity College Dublin and in 2021, recipient of the Humboldt Fellowship for a renewed stay at FRIAS, University of Freiburg, Germany. She was also FRIAS Senior Fellow and Marie Curie Fellow of the European Union at University of Freiburg, Germany in 2022. She is Humboldt Ambassador Scientist of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/) from 2021 to 2027 and ASEAN Higher Education Expert in the EU SHARE programme on higher education in the ASEAN region from 2021 to 2022. Azirah is on the editorial and advisory board of English Today, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, World Englishes, Journal of Sociolinguistic Studies, GEMA Journal of Language Studies, Journal of Intercultural Communication, Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics,  Asian Journal of English Language Studies and AEI Insights: an international journal on Asia-Europe relations. Also, she is a reviewer for several journals, external examiner and assessor for several universities and on the editorial board of the Asia TEFL book series. On 29 April 2023, Azirah was awarded Honorary Membership of the Linguistic Society of the Philippines for distinguished contribution to linguistics and language research. She was also elected Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia in April 2023.

Azian bin Madun is a senior lecturer at the University of Malaya. He received his Phd in Finance from the University of Bath, United Kingdom in 2009. He has vast experience in the financial industry after serving the Malaysian stock exchange for ten years in the areas of finance and management research from 1993 to 2003. Since 2009 he has been teaching as well as undertaking research in the areas of finance and management as well as Islamic finance.