Mala Rajo Sathian is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies and the founding coordinator of the Thai studies programme, both at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. She previously held visiting research affiliations at Prince of Songkla University, Pattani campus, Thailand, and as a Fulbright Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, US. Her areas of research include Thailand, south Thailand and north Malaysia, relating to ethnicity and marginalisation, diasporas, conflict, governance and histories of nation building. Her publications include: Siamese in Malaysia: Beyond sixty years of heritage (2018) and various articles and chapters on ethnic minorities, identity, conflict and methodology in area studies.  She hopes to advance a message of peace and tolerance towards minority communities living in multicultural Southeast Asia through her research and writing.

Hesham Al-Mekhlafi has a PhD in public health (2008), master’s degrees in medical science (parasitology) (2004) and in applied statistics (2012) as well as a bachelor’s degree in medical laboratories (1997). Since early 2000s, he has been actively engaged in research on the molecular epidemiology and prevention of infectious diseases including malaria, neglected tropical diseases, NTDs (such as soil-transmitted helminthiasis, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis and dengue fever), and waterborne parasites. He joined the department of parasitology, University of Malaya (a regional leading dept. in parasitology research) for seven years (2009–2016) as a senior lecturer and promoted to associate professor. In 2016, he joined Jazan University, Saudi Arabia and promoted to full professor in 2022. He re-joined Universiti Malaya in 2023. He has taught several courses in parasitology, epidemiology, biostatistics, and research methodology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has established passionate research teams that involved diligent postgraduate students, enthusiastic colleagues, and inspiring national and international collaborators. The research dedicated to helping vulnerable rural and aboriginal communities in Malaysia and other countries including Yemen, Nigeria and Libya against the NTDs, malaria and other infectious diseases. He has published more than 150 articles in high-impact ISI & Scopus indexed journals; with h-index of 41 (WoS). Hesham has been a member of several academic, scientific and administrative councils and committees. He also enjoys reviewing scientific manuscripts, research proposals, plans and strategies, theses and reports, etc. He is a member of the editorial boards of several renowned journals, and a regular reviewer for many peer-reviewed journals as well as a panel member of assessors for various national and international research grant schemes and postgraduate programs.

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.