Amy Then is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya. She obtained her Ph.D. in Fisheries Science from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, USA in 2014. Amy’s research interests are highly diverse and focused on animal- environment-human interactions to inform meaningful, data-driven conservation and management efforts in the coastal and marine realms. Currently, she is working on broad topics of mangrove ecology, restoration and ecosystem services assessment, shark and ray fishery assessment, marine megafauna bycatch and linkages between marine protected area and the well-being of both ecosystems and humans. She co-developed a number of successfully funded local and international proposals that were highly interdisciplinary in the last six years with funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund, Newton Fund, and British Council. To successfully deliver these projects, she had been actively using multiple science and social science approaches and with relevant stakeholder engagements at varying levels. In addition to scientific contributions in high-impact journals that included Scientific Reports, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, and Ecosystems, she also has diverse experiences in organizing international meetings, including the Third International Symposium on Mangroves as Fish Habitat (MAFH3).  

Dr. Mehdi Soltanzadeh was born in 1980 in Iran. After earning his bachelor's and master's degrees in Iran, he traveled to Malaysia in 2006 to attend an international humanities seminar, where he met several distinguished professors from Malaysian universities. This experience inspired him to pursue a doctorate faculty of arts and social sciences, department of history at the University of Malaya, one of the premier and oldest institutions in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. Following the completion of his doctoral studies, Dr. Mehdi chose to remain in Malaysia, driven by his fascination with the country's history, culture and multi-racial society. He collaborated with the Islamic Arts Museum of Malaysia for a year as a senior researcher, mostly on researching and translation of  Manuscripts, then he became of life member of Malaysia Translators’ Association,  he engaged in research with the Department of Malay Studies at the National University of Malaysia, focusing on translating various Persian classical texts into Malay. Additionally, he serves as a translator for the Islamic Encyclopaedia Foundation in Iran, where he has translated numerous entries authored by Malaysian and Indonesian scholars from Malay language into Persian language for publication in the Islamic World Encyclopaedia in Iran. Dr. Mehdi now is a senior lecturer at Academy of Malay Studies, Universiti Malaya.

Professor Andri Andriyana is a Professor of Applied Mechanics. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia, in 2000. From 2000 to 2002, he worked as a Field Engineer at Halliburton, where he was involved in several oil and gas well cementing and stimulation projects. He obtained Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et d’Aérotechnique (ENSMA) - Université de Poitiers, France, in 2003. In 2006, he was awarded Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics with Distinction from École Centrale de Nantes, France. Following the completion of his Ph.D., he served as an Assistant Professor at École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers (ENSAM), Bordeaux, and subsequently spent two years as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Centre de Mise en Forme des Matériaux (CEMEF), École des Mines de Paris, Sophia Antipolis. Professor Andriyana joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Malaya, in 2009 as a Senior Lecturer. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016 and to Full Professor in 2023. To date, he has secured approximately USD 5 Million in funding, including grants for research, European mobility, and capacity-building initiatives in higher education from both public and private sectors. Since 2013, he has been a registered Chartered Engineer (CEng) with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), United Kingdom. His awards and recognitions include the Bourse du Gouvernement Français Scholarship (2002-2003), the Allocation de Recherche Scholarship (2003-2006), the Mahar Schützenberger Prize (2005), the European Interweave Erasmus Mundus Fellowship (2014), UM Sijil Perkhidmatan Cemerlang Award (2011, 2016 and 2020), the Indonesia World Class Professor Fellowship (2017) and UM Anugerah Perkhidmatan Cemerlang Award 2022. Professor Andriyana has held several academic leadership roles, including Head of the Master of Materials Engineering Program (2013–2019), Deputy Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Engineering (2019–2021), and Director of the International Relations Centre, Universiti Malaya (2023–2025). His research interests focus on mechanical testing, constitutive modeling, and finite element simulation of deformation, degradation, fracture, fatigue and failure in materials including solid polymers, elastomers, metal alloys, composites and soft biological tissues.