PROF. DATUK DR SITI ZAWIAH BINTI OMAR Emeritus Professor

  Professor Hany Ariffin  is  Professor of Paediatrics and Head of the Division of Paediatric Haematology-Oncology and Blood & Marrow Transplantation at the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC). She also heads the Biobank Unit in the Faculty of Medicine, UM.  Her main research interest is childhood leukaemia and she has been the Malaysian lead for the Malaysia-Singapore (MASPORE) Leukaemia Study Group since 2003. Her other research areas include childhood cancer survivorship, stem cell transplantation and inherited cancers, particularly related to mutations in the tumour suppressor gene, TP53. In 2015, she won the Anugerah Akademik Negara award and in 2018 received the Distinguished Researcher Award from University Malaya. Professor Hany is chairperson of the paediatric oncology accreditation committee for the National Specialist Register and a past president of the Malaysian Society of Paediatric Haematology-Oncology. She is also the chairperson of the VIVA-Asia Bone Marrow Transplantation Consortium for 2024/2025. Professor Hany is an Associate Editor for Technology in Cancer Reseach &Treatment (Tumour Biology) and Frontiers in Oncology (Paediatric Oncology).     

Shangeetha Rajah Kumaran is a Senior Lecturer and the current Head of the Department of English Language in the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics at Universiti Malaya (UM), a position she has held at various times since 2021. She is also the Universiti Malaya Quality Excellence Index (UMQEI) assessor and the University's Programme Quality Assurance Expert (ProQAE), working collaboratively to enhance academic programmes, and improve standardisation and quality of documentation for accreditations. Due to her expertise in programme quality assurance, she has served as the Chair and External Panel of Assessor for the Full Accreditation of several programmes in various institutions. Her primary research interests focus on sociolinguistics and postcolonial literature, particularly, the sociolinguistic aspects of language use in literary texts, code-switching in various fields, language maintenance and shift among diasporic communities, and Malaysian Indian writings in English. Her current research work centres on translanguaging practices in the education and medical fields, as well as the visibility of languages in public spaces (linguistic landscape). She has authored and co-authored numerous articles and a book titled Diasporic Consciousness of Malaysian Indian Writings in English. She is also the recipient of the 2025 Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS).