Nurliana Kamaruddin is senior lecturer at the East Asian Studies Department, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Universiti Malaya. She is also a fellow at the Centre for ASEAN Regionalism, AEI, UM. Previously she was Deputy Executive Director (Academic and Students Affairs) at the Asia-Europe Institute (2021-2024). Her recent publications include books by Routledge (Southward Bound: Examining the Regional Policies of Taiwan and South Korea, 2024) and Palgrave-Macmillan (The New Normal and Its Impact on Society: Perspectives from ASEAN and the European Union, 2024). Nurliana was a recipient of the Korea Foundation ASEAN Fellowship (2013-2015) and the POSCO TJ Park Foundation Asia Fellowship (2009-2011). Her research interest includes international security and development with a focus on East Asia and specifically Malaysia-Korea Relations.

Dr. Narsimlu Kemsaram is a Senior Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He holds Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD degrees in Computer Science.During his PhD, he worked as an Assistant Researcher in the Department of Computer Science at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (University of Würzburg), Germany, on the project “An Autonomous Sensor Network for the Detection and Observation of Meteors (ASMET)”, funded by the European Union-Regional Development Fund (EU-RDF).After completing his PhD, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Mobile Perception Systems (MPS) Lab, Signal Processing Systems Group, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), the Netherlands, contributing to “Integrated Cooperative Automated Vehicles (i-CAVE): Sensing, Mapping, and Localization”, funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).He then joined the Space Robotics (SpaceR) Group at the SnT Research Centre, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, working on “Secure and Safe Multi-Robot Systems (SESAME)” (EU Horizon 2020) and “5G-Sky: Interconnecting the Sky in 5G and Beyond – A Joint Communication and Control Approach” (Luxembourg National Research Fund FNR CORE).Most recently, he was a Research Fellow in Multi-Robot Systems in the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UCL), United Kingdom, working on “Swarm Spatial Sound Modulators (Swarm SSMs)”, funded through an EPSRC Prosperity Partnership and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).Research Interests:Swarm Robotics, UAVs, Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics and AI.

I am currently a Lecturer at the Department of Arabic Language and Middle Eastern Languages, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya (UM), Malaysia. My academic and professional trajectory has been shaped by sustained engagements with the Arabic language and linguistics, translation, interpreting, and the pragmatics of cross-cultural communication. I am now reading for a PhD in Translation and Interpreting (Interpreting Studies) at Universiti Sains Malaysia, where I explore the intricacies of (im)politeness in Arabic-English simultaneous interpreting. My research investigates how interpreters navigate shifts in (im)politeness strategies under real-time cognitive constraints. Positioned at the intersection of pragmatics, interpreting studies, cognitive linguistics, and cognitive psychology, this work aims to illuminate the interplay between linguistic (im)politeness, real-time cross-cultural mediation, and the psychological demands of interpreting in high-stakes settings. This doctoral inquiry builds upon my MA in Linguistics from UM, where I examined implicature in the Quran through a pragmatic lens, sharpening my sensitivity to inferencing, intention, and context in meaning-making. My foundational training began with a BA in Arabic Language and Linguistics from Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco, where I graduated with distinction (comparable to summa cum laude in Western academic systems) and was honoured as the university's Best Student in 2019. These academic foundations laid the critical groundwork for my current scholarly focus. Beyond academia, I am a certified translator with the Institut Terjemahan & Buku Malaysia (ITBM; Malaysian Institute of Translation & Books), with extensive experience in translating, editing, and proofreading scholarly texts, theses, and books. I welcome insights most notably from language service providers and industry stakeholders to support research on interpreter ethics, translator/interpreter training, and discourse in professional translation and interpreting contexts.