Dr. Noorhidayah is a dental lecturer and paediatric dental specialist at the Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She obtained her first degree in Bachelor of Dental Surgery from Universiti Malaya in 2010. She then served the Ministry of Health, Malaysia for five years as a dental officer in various urban and rural areas of Selangor. Afterward, she joined Universiti Malaya as a trainee lecturer in 2015 and pursed her specialist training in Paediatric Dentistry in University of Leeds, United Kingdom. She was awarded with a degree of Doctor in Paediatric Dentistry in 2019. Her career in dental education and as a clinical lecturer begins soon after. She has presented multiple case reports and research projects in international conferences since then. Currently, she is also trained in Behavioral Hypnotherapy and a member of various national and international associations related to Paediatric Dentistry and Hypnotherapy.

I am an anthropologist by training and I am involved in research on community development and engagement. All of my work with the communities have been supporting and creating a structure for them to participate in circular economy by empowering them with skills and knowledge that are relevant for them to establish community-based enterprise or to enhance their knowledge on being an Indigenous entrepreneurs at the rural regions. For this purpose, I adopt participatory community-based action research and ethnographic study, particularly when I conduct social impact assessment before conducting the research and after the implementations of the projects. My primary research focusing on community-driven development project that includes the applications of Indigenous knowledgeas tools for the community livelihood development in the circular economy on community-based cultural and knowledge conservation by engaging the makers, artisans and women to actively participate in the projects. The most successful research and sustainable community engagement has been the development of the Indigenous knowledge of the traditional textile, the Iban pua kumbu that has led to a series of educational polysensory exhibition, the “Textile Tales of the Pua Kumbu since 2015. I am also an art curator, curating cultural exhibitions and based on the HIR (2013-2016), I created a community-based enterprise that promotes the traditional Iban Pua Kumbu internationally.

Mala Rajo Sathian is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies and the founding coordinator of the Thai studies programme, both at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. She previously held visiting research affiliations at Prince of Songkla University, Pattani campus, Thailand, and as a Fulbright Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, US. Her areas of research include Thailand, south Thailand and north Malaysia, relating to ethnicity and marginalisation, diasporas, conflict, governance and histories of nation building. Her publications include: Siamese in Malaysia: Beyond sixty years of heritage (2018) and various articles and chapters on ethnic minorities, identity, conflict and methodology in area studies.  She hopes to advance a message of peace and tolerance towards minority communities living in multicultural Southeast Asia through her research and writing.