Dr. Muzalwana is a senior lecturer in the Department of Decision Science, Faculty of Business and Economics (FBEcons) (formerly known as the Faculty of Economics and Administration, FEA), where she has been serving since 2011. She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Statistics with a specialization in Statistical Quality Control (SQC) from the University of Malaya. She also earned her Master’s in Applied Statistics from FEA and a BA (Hons) in Business Management from Sheffield Hallam University, UK. As an applied statistician, Dr. Muzalwana’s research is inherently interdisciplinary, focusing on Statistical Quality Control, efficiency studies, and survey research. Her work extends SQC applications beyond manufacturing to domains such as environmental studies, efficiency measurement, and social science research. Dr. Muzalwana’s primary research interest lies in developing and applying statistical control schemes to analyze environmental variables in Malaysia. Her work includes the application of control charts to gain valuable insights into COVID-19 case trends in Malaysia and to monitor air quality patterns in compliance with the Malaysian Ambient Air Quality Standards. Other notable contributions include measuring the efficiency of higher education institutions with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), exploring retirement financial planning among civil servants, and examining the relationship between household income and life satisfaction among single mothers in Malaysia. Her recent publications include Pasaran Dadah dari Perspektif Socio-ekonomi Malaysia (The Malaysian Drug Market from Socio-Economic Perspectives) and an edited volume, Post-Pandemic Economic and Social Development: Recovery, Challenges, and Policy in Malaysia. These works contribute significantly to the social sciences and public discourse on critical societal challenges. A passionate educator, Dr. Muzalwana designed the course Statistical Methods for Quality Management for the Master’s in Applied Statistics program at FBEcons and has been teaching it since 2012. With over 20 years of teaching experience, she specializes in graduate-level courses in statistical quality management and marketing research techniques, as well as undergraduate courses in statistics and management decision-making. Dr. Muzalwana has supervised more than 50 Master’s students and 14 Ph.D. candidates over the past decade, playing a pivotal role in nurturing the next generation of scholars in her field.

Associate Professor Dr Saritha Sivarajan completed her Bachelor of Dental Surgery at Universiti Malaya in 2007. Since then she has completed her specialist training in orthodontics at Universiti Malaya. She graduated in 2017 with distinction for her Master of Orthodontics  and was awarded best overall performance in orthodontics. She obtained her Membership in Orthodontics from the Royal College of Surgeon of England in 2017. Currently she is an Associate Professor of Orthodontics at Universiti Malaya for both the undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Besides that, she is an active researcher and has published a few research papers in academic journals. She examines the Membership of Orthodontics Part 2 examinations of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. 

  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. By comparing different case studies of Taiwan's quasi-state engagement within Southeast Asia, Dr. Lee has developed the soft power diffusion process to explain how such phenomenon operates in the real world. His ongoing and incoming research projects include Unpacking ‘De-risking’ China in the Indo-Pacific Region: Economic Statecraft (ES) & Geoeconomics, Taiwan's New Southbound Policy (NSP) and NSP+: The Domestic-International Dichotomy, The Taiwanese Connections in Nvidia's Global AI Supply Chain and Taiwan and Ireland: The Story of Two Tech Powerhouses.  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) (2018-2019), 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, comparative cases of ES between Asia and Europe, US-China-ASEAN semiconductor geoeconomics and case studies of donut economies in Asia. He is also willing to discuss with potential doctoral candidates on proposals related to the Chinese sub-state (provincial and city) diplomacy toward ASEAN, comparative cases of sub-state diplomacy between Asia and Europe as well as conceptual innovations of sub-state diplomacy vis-a-vis soft power.