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. 

Dr. Mohd Rashid bin Mohd Saad is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Language And Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, University of Malaysia. His total current teaching experience in higher education sectors totaled more than 25 years. His experience includes teaching government-supported schools, private colleges and some consultation works with both public and private sectors both locally and internationally. He has been teaching issues, trends and research in the area of Teaching of English as a Second Language. His current interest is issues, emerging trends and debates in the implementation of Emerging Technologies for non-native EFL language teachers.  

Effariza Hanafi received the B.Eng. in Telecommunications (first class honours) from the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, S.A., Australia, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2014, respectively. She joined the Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she is now a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering. She is actively involved in research as a principal investigator and has secured research grants from Fundamental Research Grants Scheme (MOE, Malaysia) and internal research grants in Universiti Malaya. She has published more than 40 journal papers in ISI-indexed publications and refereed conference papers. She is an active reviewer for numerous high-quality journals such as IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Access and several international conferences such as IEEE Global Communications Conference.   She is currently a Senior Member for IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). She was the recipient of the MARA Scholarship for undergraduate study, and the Codan Achievement Prize in 2010. She was also the recipient of Scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education and University of Malaya, Malaysia for her doctoral studies, and the best student poster presentation at the Australian Communications Theory Workshop (AusCTW) 2013. In 2015, she was the recipient of the University of Malaya Excellence Awards. She was an awardee for financial support from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for AUN/SEED-Net Regional Conference on Computer and Information Engineering (RCCIE) 2018.   Her main research interests span widely across the area of Internet of Things (system integration, smart system), wireless communication (5G networks, channel characterization, cooperative and distributed communications, non-orthogonal multiple access), RF technologies (PCB fabrication, UHF RFID tag antenna) and optical communications (fiber laser and sensor).