Dr Cheah graduated from Universiti Sains Malaysia with a BSc (Hons) in 2003 and a MSc in 2007. He obtained his PhD in Oceanography from University of Tasmania in Australia in 2012 under a scholarship from the Australian Government’s Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre. After submitting his PhD thesis in 2011, he was offered a postdoctoral position at Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany where he lived in Bremerhaven until 2013. He then moved to Taiwan in 2014 after securing a two-year Academia Sinica Postdoctoral Scholar award. In 2016, he was again awarded another Academia Sinica Postdoctoral Scholar award and spent another two years at Academia Sinica. In the same year, he won the best oral presentation award for the Asian Region category at the 34th Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research Open Science Conference. Since 2018, he has been a Senior Lecturer at University of Malaya’s Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences. His current research focuses on the changes in the atmosphere, land and ocean, and how these changes are affecting the oceans and marine organisms. He has participated in various international research voyages on board Australian, German, and Taiwanese research vessels including four in the Southern Ocean, two in the South China Sea, and one each in the North Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Mohd Hafiz Jamaludin is a senior lecturer in the Department of Shariah and Law, Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya. He is a graduate of Al-Azhar University, Egypt, in 2007, with a degree in Shariah Islamiah. In 2009, he pursued postgraduate studies in the Department of Shariah and Law, Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya, specializing in the Law of Fatwa. He completed his postgraduate studies in 2011. Subsequently, he received sponsorship from the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia under the Bumiputera Academic Training Scheme (SLAB) to pursue his doctoral studies in Shariah Law in 2012 at the same university. Throughout his doctoral studies, he had the opportunity to attend courses in Arabic language and Islamic Studies Methodology at the Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia, in 2013, and the Student Exchange Program at The Istanbul Foundation for Science and Culture, Turkey, in 2014. He completed his doctoral studies in 2016. He has been involved in various research projects led by his supervisor, Professor Dato’ Dr Ahmad Hidayat Buang, in the fields of fatwa and Islamic finance. Furthermore, he led a research project in the field of Islamic finance funded by the Ministry of Education, University of Malaya, and INCEIF in 2017. He has published several articles in the fields of Shariah, fatwa, and Islamic finance in local and international journals, as well as presented at national and international conferences. He is the first of three siblings, is married to Norlaila Md Yusof and is blessed with three children.

Dr. Kishneth Palaniveloo received his early education in Kedah (1991–2003) before obtaining his Bachelor of Science in Marine Science (2007) from Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). He is a trained PADI Divemaster and actively participated in teaching, recreational diving, and scientific diving activities that supported educational and research programmes. Thereafter he was briefly attached to the Kota Kinabalu Fisheries Department and Marine Research Foundation (MRF), contributing to research on marine resource management and conservation. He later completed a Master’s degree in Fermentation Biochemistry (2008–2010), followed by a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Advancement of Biodiversity with a focus on Marine Ecological Chemistry at UMS. His doctoral research centred on the isolation, characterization, and structural elucidation of secondary metabolites from marine invertebrates. His work discovered novel compounds and chemical skeletons from soft corals (Alcyonacea) and the sea hare Aplysia dactylomela. During his PhD, he isolated nearly 80 secondary metabolites from both marine and terrestrial sources. His training, which included a research attachment at Jeju National University (Korea), emphasized advanced analytical and spectroscopic techniques, linking natural products chemistry with ecological function and pharmaceutical potential. After completing his PhD, Dr. Kishneth joined a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) project as a researcher for a research training at Kyushu University (Japan) where he investigated the structure and diversity of soil microbial communities, expanding his expertise from marine chemical ecology to terrestrial microbial ecology and strengthening his capabilities in environmental molecular biology and natural products research. In 2017, Dr. Kishneth joined the Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences (IOES), Universiti Malaya as a Senior Lecturer. He was appointed Laboratory Coordinator in 2020 and, since 2023, as the Head of the Marine Biotechnology Unit. His research integrates biodiversity, marine chemical ecology, and biogeochemistry, focusing on: (1) soft coral species and chemical diversity; (2) algal metabolites; (3) microbial community profiling using next-generation sequencing (NGS); and (4) carbon stock assessment and mangrove adaptation under environmental and climatic changes, contributing to blue carbon and conservation initiatives. His passion for chemical diversity supports collaborations with pharmaceutical scientists and drives his interest in product development. Dr. Kishneth publishes and reviews for numerous indexed scientific journals, including Ecological Indicators, Journal of Applied Phycology, and 3Biotech, reflecting his multidisciplinary reach across marine biodiversity, chemical ecology, and sustainable bioprospecting. He has secured approximately RM5 million in total research funding as principal investigator and co-researcher. His projects cover soft coral chemotaxonomy, mangrove genetic diversity, bioactive compound discovery, and composting technology, aligning with national priorities for marine resource sustainability. He currently has 25 ISI-indexed publications and an H-index of 12 with over 540 citations. He actively supervises MSc and PhD students and teaches Marine Biotechnology annually. He is also involved in developing the Master’s curriculum for IOES. Beyond academia, Dr. Kishneth plays an active role in professional societies and scientific advocacy. He served three terms as the Honorary Secretary of the Malaysian Society of Marine Sciences (MSMS), contributing to national task forces and committees on biodiversity conservation with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Fisheries Department, resulting to the gazettement of marine protected areas in Melaka. He is also a member of the International Association for Biological Oceanography, the Malaysian Society of Natural Products, and an associate of the Centre for Natural Products Research and Drug Discovery (CENAR), Universiti Malaya. His achievements are recognized through various local and international collaborations and awards, including the Universiti Malaya Excellence Service Award (2022), the JICA Training Award on OTEC and DSW Applications (2022), and several gold awards at research innovation competitions (2009, 2012, 2025). Dr. Kishneth Palaniveloo aims to continue advancing research and teaching in marine science, natural product chemistry, and ecosystem sustainability in line with national and university aspirations for scientific innovation and marine resource stewardship.