Rafidah Atan is Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya and Consultant Intensivist in the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre. Rafidah graduated with MBBS in 1996 and Master of Anaesthesiology in 2003 from Universiti Malaya, and for the latter she was also awarded the K. Pathmarajah Gold Medal. She went on to earn the Fellowship of Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthesiologists (FANZCA) in 2006, European Diploma in Intensive Care (EDIC) in 2012 and PhD (Monash University) in 2018. Her academic career saw her serving in Monash University Malaysia, from 2006, as one of the pioneer staff members of its Clinical School Johor Bahru, until 2020 when she joined Universiti Malaya. In Monash University Malaysia, she was actively involved in educational roles, co-ordinating the MBBS Final (Pre-intern) Year and the Patient Safety Unit. For the Patient Safety Unit, she notably received the Monash University’s Purple Letter for outstanding student evaluation results in 2011, 2014 and 2015. Her clinical career, on the other hand, ranged from Registrar to Consultant appointments at various hospitals in Malaysia (Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Hospital Sultanah Aminah, Hospital Sultan Ismail and Universiti Malaya Medical Centre) and in Australia (Royal Melbourne Hospital and Austin Hospital, Melbourne). Rafidah is a simulation enthusiast and frequently convenes simulation workshops, as well as accepting speaking engagements on this topic. She was a member of the protem committee in setting up the Malaysian Society for Simulation in Healthcare (MaSSH) and thereafter was its Vice Chairman from 2019 to 2021. Her experience and leadership in simulation combines well with her other passion - teaching and promoting Patient Safety and crisis management skills to medical undergraduates and other healthcare professionals. After joining Universiti Malaya, she was appointed Lead of the Writing Committee for the National Postgraduate Medical Curriculum: Patient Safety Core Curriculum that was released in 2021.  Rafidah has other educational passions including teaching of evidence-based medicine (EBM) and critical appraisal of literature. She has been involved in numerous EBM workshops conducted on a national and regional level. Of special note, since 2016, she has been involved as one of facilitators for the highly regarded Asia-Pacific Evidence-Based Medicine and Nursing (APEBMN) Conference conducted annually in Singapore. Her ventures in education include being a member of Medical Humanities and Ethics Unit (MedHEU) for which she leads the Medical Language and Linguistics section. Activities of this unit include conducting webinars on topics relating to difficult conversations in various clinical settings and inclusion of humanities component of the undergraduate medical curriculum. She is currently the Personal and Professional Development (PPD) coordinator for the undergraduate Universiti Malaya Medical Programme. Rafidah also participates in clinical research in Intensive Care Medicine. Her PhD research is on high cut-off hemofiltration and cytokine removal in critically ill patients. She is currently involved in a few collaborative research projects on topics related to intensive care. Rafidah currently heads the Department of Anaesthesiology, Faculty of Medicine Universiti Malaya. 

  Started his research career in the think tank sector, Dr. Lee Chee Leong (Karl) is attracted to the rise of non-traditional diplomacy in the international order today. Such appeal has taken Dr. Lee into new research horizons that started with his Monash University's doctoral research on the Chinese sub-state diplomacy in China-ASEAN economic cooperation. With constructive supervision by Professor Helen Nesadurai and Associate Professor Kuik Cheng Chwee, Dr. Lee completed his doctoral thesis that unravels how a faraway and least developed sub-state of Guangxi managed to overcome its own hurdles, navigate the complexities within the Chinese state and become the frontline actor in China-ASEAN economic cooperation.  Following his doctoral completion, Dr. Lee's research on non-traditional diplomacy has expanded into Taiwan’s quasi-state diplomacy in Southeast Asia. Such quest has led him spending at great length in comprehending the concept of soft power, a concept that finds its relevance to Taiwan, which has no official diplomatic with Southeast Asia but is heavily connected to the region and has to rely on soft power in its engagements with these Southeast Asian nations. By comparing different case studies of Taiwan's quasi-state engagement within Southeast Asia, Dr. Lee has developed the soft power diffusion process to explain how such phenomenon operates in the real world. His ongoing and incoming research projects include Unpacking ‘De-risking’ China in the Indo-Pacific Region: Economic Statecraft (ES) & Geoeconomics, Taiwan's New Southbound Policy (NSP) and NSP+: The Domestic-International Dichotomy, The Taiwanese Connections in Nvidia's Global AI Supply Chain and Taiwan and Ireland: The Story of Two Tech Powerhouses.  To date, Dr. Lee was the recipient of several scholarships and fellowships in Malaysia and overseas: University of Malaya’s Graduate Fellowship (2010-2011); Monash University’s Merit Scholarship (2016-2019); Chinese Government Scholarship (2018-2019); and Taiwan Fellowship (2020). Prior to his appointment as Senior Lecturer at the Institute of China Studies (ICS), he was the Visiting Scholar at Guangxi University for Nationalities (GXUN) (2018-2019), Taiwan Fellow at National Chengchi University (NCCU) (2020) and Associate Fellow at ICS UM (2016-2019). He welcomes any potential PhD candidate who would like to work on Taiwan-Southeast Asia relations, comparative cases of ES between Asia and Europe, US-China-ASEAN semiconductor geoeconomics and case studies of donut economies in Asia. He is also willing to discuss with potential doctoral candidates on proposals related to the Chinese sub-state (provincial and city) diplomacy toward ASEAN, comparative cases of sub-state diplomacy between Asia and Europe as well as conceptual innovations of sub-state diplomacy vis-a-vis soft power.     

Dr. Norhanim Zakaria is an Associates Professor in the Department of Quantity Surveying, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Malaya. She has held various responsibilities in academic administration including Head of Department and Programme Coordinator for Master of Science in Project Management at the Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Malaya. Her research interest in project management focuses on Life Cycle Cost (LCC).   Dr. Norhanim had involved in quantity surveying-related consultation projects in Malaysia via the Universiti Malaya consultation unit i.e. UPUM Sdn Bhd. Dr. Norhanim has published articles in academic journals, including ISI and Scopus indexed, and books. She also has contributed articles in newsletters and bulletins and presented papers at conferences locally and internationally. She has worked as a Principal Investigator and as a co-researcher for external and internal grants. Dr. Norhanim had also registered 3 intellectual properties (IPR) on research products.