Dr. Li Ran is Senior Lecturer at Institute of China Studies, Faculty of Art and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya. She obtained her doctoral degree in Economics from Department of Economics, Universiti Malaya in 2014. Her specialization is in the transformation of China’s state enterprises, state enterprise system and China’s political-economic system, and her current areas of research include China’s global strategy and China-Malaysia economic relations. Her previous writings have appeared in a number of international journals such as China: An International Journal, Cities, International Journal of China Studies, and Journal of Contemporary Asia. Moreover, her doctoral thesis was published as a book by a reputable publisher Palgrave Macmillan. She also wrote for Sin Chew Daily as a column author regularly.

Roshidah Hassan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Asian Languages, Universiti Malaya. She served as Deputy Dean (Undergraduate Studies) from 2018 to 2022 and previously headed the Department of Asian and European Languages. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Malay Studies (Linguistics) and a PhD from Universiti Malaya, as well as a Diploma in French Studies from the University of La Rochelle and a Master’s in Teaching French as a Foreign Language from the University of Poitiers. Her teaching covers French syntax, morphology, phonetics, and phonology. Her research focuses on language acquisition, phonetics, phonology, and ethnolinguistics. She is currently involved in documenting endangered Orang Asli languages and investigating how Malaysian learners acquire French sounds. She also conducts research on the preservation of Portuguese Creole in Malacca. Her work contributes to sustaining linguistic diversity and enhancing language education for minority and indigenous communities in Malaysia.

  Dr Benedict Francis is a psychiatrist at the University Malaya Medical Centre. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya and was selected for the Brightsparks scholarship to pursue his Masters in Psychological Medicine at his alma mater, the University of Malaya. Subsequently, he completed a fellowship program in Aged Healthcare Services at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, in 2019. Dr Benedict is a keen researcher and is involved in several international, multi-centre clinical trials involving novel antipsychotics and antidepressants. He has also published in several international and regional peer-reviewed journals and presented in international congresses. Dr Benedict is a clinical expert in treatment resistant depression. He was part of the Ministry of Health’s  National Advisory Board committee that drafted the guidelines for prescribing and dispensing Esketamine, a novel adjunct antidepressant treatment. Dr Benedict is regarded as a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) in the fields of treatment resistant depression and schizophrenia, and is regularly invited as a speaker at both local and regional events. His passion and interest is in the mechanism of action of rapid-acting antidepressants and treatment optimization of patients with treatment resistant depression.