Dr. Mohd Fairuz Zamani, commonly known as Fairuz Zamani, is currently serving as an academic at the Faculty of Creative Arts, Universiti Malaya (UM), where he holds the position of Deputy Dean of Postgraduate, Research & Innovation. His research focuses on contemporary Malaysian music composition, with particular interest in developing analytical frameworks for the works of Malaysian composers. Dr. Fairuz has published in several esteemed academic journals, including Muzikološki Zbornik, Malaysian Journal of Music, Harmonia: Journal of Arts Research and Education, Wacana Seni, and 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature. His forthcoming articles are scheduled for publication in Wacana Seni (late 2025) and Resonancias (mid 2026). He has led research projects aimed at promoting Malaysian piano repertoire to wider audiences and currently oversees a grant focused on analytical methodologies for selected works by Razak Abdul Aziz. Beyond academia, Dr. Fairuz is an active composer. He has been a member of the Malaysian Composers Collective since 2022, under which he premiered Phrygian Fantasy (2023), Kenyalang Rhapsody (2022), and Two Miniatures (2022). During his tenure as resident arranger for Koir Kebangsaan Malaysia and Permata Seni Koir, he composed two commissioned works for the Department of Culture and Arts, Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MOTAC): Nuance of Rebab Fantasy (2013) and Mek Mulung Cycle (2018). His choral arrangements continue to be performed in national and international competitions, often by award-winning ensembles. Dr. Fairuz is also a seasoned performer and adjudicator. In June 2025, he was awarded the Prix de Perfectionnement à l’unanimité for outstanding performance at the Conservatoire International de Musique de Paris. His recent notable performances include Music of Johan Othman and Razak Aziz (2023), The Carnival of the Animals (2022) with the National Symphony Orchestra of Malaysia, and Beethoven’s 250th Birthday Celebration Concert at the German Embassy in Kuala Lumpur (2021). He has also served as adjudicator for events such as the MAME Folksong Festival (Piano category) and the 2nd China-ASEAN Music and Arts Cultural Exchange in 2024.

Dr. Tang Swee Seong is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, Malaysia. He obtained his B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry in 2000 and M.Sc. in Microbiology in 2004 from the University of Malaya. He was awarded a tutorship by the university for his MSc studies and later received the SLAI fellowship (University Academic Training Scheme) from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia to pursue his PhD at the Australian National University, Australia. He completed his PhD in Molecular Microbiology in 2013 and subsequently returned to Malaysia to take up a tenure-track lectureship at the University of Malaya. Dr. Tang has played a key role as a principal investigator (PI) and has led several research projects, including the Isolation and Characterization of Bacteriophage Against Shigella spp. and Elucidating the Molecular Mechanistic Interaction of Polyvalent Bacteriophages Against Bacterial Hosts. Over the past few years, his research team has characterized a collection of phages targeting Salmonella enterica and other enteric bacteria. He is also interested in developing bacteriophage cocktails as diagnostic and therapeutic agents against multidrug-resistant pathogens in aquatic animals. His ultimate goal is to develop natural alternatives to combat the crisis of multidrug resistance and explore the use of phages in the treatment of infectious diseases in humans and agricultural animals. Dr. Tang served as an editorial board member for the Special Issue on Recent Topics in Life Sciences in the Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences (Elsevier) in 2015. He has also acted as a guest reviewer for numerous national and international journals, including Frontiers in Life Sciences, Malaysian Journal of Science, Carbohydrate Research, JSM Tropical Medicine & Research, Journal of Tropical Agriculture and Food Science, Malaysian Applied Biology, PLoS ONE, Phytochemistry, PeerJ, International Journal of Nanomedicine, Microbial Drug Resistance, Journal of Cellular Physiology, Malaysian Journal of Microbiology, Journal of Health and Translational Medicine, Philippine Journal of Science, and Tropical Biomedicine.      

Associate Professor Dr. Nur Awanis Hashim is an Associate Professor specialising in membrane technology and fabrication at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Malaya (UM). She joined UM as a lecturer in November 2004 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2011. Since then, she has played a key role in developing membrane fabrication research at UM, particularly through the application of the phase inversion process. Before entering academia, Awanis worked as a Plant Engineer at Hitachi Semiconductor (Penang) after completing her Bachelor’s degree under the Monbusho Scholarship (now the MEXT Scholarship, Japan). Her academic training spans Japan and the United Kingdom, with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from Osaka University, a Master’s degree in Environmental Biotechnology from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), and a PhD from Imperial College London. She completed her secondary education at Sekolah Tun Fatimah, Johor Bahru. In 2014, she represented Malaysia in the ASEAN–US Science Prize for Women competition in recognition of her work on membrane-based approaches to improving access to safe drinking water in the ASEAN region. Her research career has also been strengthened through international collaborations supported by the Hitachi Research Fellowship (2016), the Yamaguchi University Visiting Scholar Award and MEXT Global Networking Award (2019), and the JSPS Bridge Fellowship Award (2023), hosted by Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan. Awanis received a special grant under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) in 2015 from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia for research on disaster mitigation and flood prevention using membrane technology. She has been involved in 16 research projects and has served as Principal Investigator for 12 internal and external grants, with total funding exceeding RM1.5 million. She is a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Engineering and Technology (UK) and a Professional Engineer registered with the Board of Engineers Malaysia. She currently serves as an Executive Committee (Exco) member of JSPS–JAAM and is a member of the Board of Engineers Malaysia. Awanis has held various academic and administrative leadership positions at UM since 2004, including Head of the Centre for Separation Science and Technology (January 2020 – December 2021), undergraduate programme coordinator, curriculum review committee member, laboratory coordinator, and departmental quality manager. From 2023 to 2025, she was seconded to the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia as Deputy Undersecretary in the Policy and Research Division, where she headed the Research and Public–Private Research Network (PPRN) Section, comprising the Research Unit, PPRN Unit, and the Administration Unit. In this capacity, she was responsible for developing strategies and overseeing the implementation and monitoring of policy research, PPRN, and social innovation funding to ensure effective, value-added outcomes. She also coordinated research initiatives across departments within MOHE and represented the Ministry in matters related to research with other ministries. Her research interests include membrane fabrication and modification, membrane-based separation technologies, separation processes, water and wastewater treatment, and carbon dioxide capture using membrane gas absorption. She has published more than fifty articles in ISI-indexed journals and regularly presents her work at national and international conferences.