Professor Dr. April Roslani is a Professor of Colorectal Surgery, and was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya from 2020 - 2024. She graduated from the University of Wales College of Medicine in 1995, and was awarded Universiti Malaya’s Master of Surgery in 2003. In 2007, she established University Malaya Medical Centre’s (UMMC) Colorectal Surgery Unit, which is now the largest in the country, and a key stakeholder in colorectal training and services nationally and regionally.   Her areas of expertise include surgery for colorectal cancer, proctology, surgical training and professionalism. She established the first Malaysian Cytoreductive Surgery (CRS) and Hyperthermic Intra-Peritoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) service in UMMC, which is delivered by a multi-disciplinary team.   Prof. April is an influential driver of postgraduate medical training nationally, regionally and internationally. She has chaired the Conjoint Committee for Postgraduate Medical Degrees, which oversees, aligns and coordinates medical specialist training programmes across all higher education providers in Malaysia. Recognizing the need to standardize training across institutions in order to meet the country’s need for healthcare specialists, she led the development of a new national training curriculum for general surgery under the National Postgraduate Curriculum Project. As chair of the Train-the-Trainers Steering Committee, she led the development of a blended curriculum for train-the-trainers modules, which has been rolled out across all specialties, nationally. She has advocated against toxic workplace environments, generating the evidence base and incorporating training modules in both trainee and trainer curricula.   Her leadership credentials are undisputed. She is currently a Director for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh's International Office, has been Regional Ambassador for the Association of Academic Health Centers International, and hosted the ASEAN Medical Deans Summit in 2023. She is a Councillor in the International Surgical Society, which champions outreach educational activities to improve access to surgical services globally, and was part of the team that successfully ran the International Surgical Week 2024 in Malaysia for the first time. She was Chair of the Steering Committee for the National Postgraduate Medical Curriculum Project. From a regulatory perspective, she leads the Malaysian Medical Council’s Specialty Subcommittee (Education) for General Surgery, which set the standards for recognition of training programmes, and she regularly evaluates programmes for accreditation by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency. She is the immediate Past-President for the Malaysian Society of Colorectal Surgeons, the College of Surgeons, Academy of Medicine of Malaysia and the Asia Pacific Federation of Coloproctology.   Through these and other related roles, she works towards advancing surgical standards, and fairness in the workplace. Her work has been recognized by the international surgical fraternity, through numerous Honorary Fellowship awards, including most recently from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Dr Cheng Sit Foon is currently a Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Universiti Malaya. Prior to joining Universiti Malaya in 2008, she started her career as a research officer at Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) (2003 – 2007) and a lecturer at Sunway University (then Sunway University College) (2007 – 2008). Palm oil and palm oil industry is always close to her heart. Her exposure and experience in palm oil research dates back to 1999 as a MPOB scholar. Currently, she leads her research group ‘Unit of Research on Lipids (URL)’ where the main focus is laid on human nutrition and high valued oil-based through interdisciplinary research on oils and fats, more particularly on palm oil. As an educator, she is also involved in designing chemistry-related undergraduate courses. She has been appointed by other Universities as external examiner and assessors for academic programmes. Her administrative experiences in Universiti Malaya until 2020 include serving as the Programme Coordinator of Bachelor of Science (Applied Chemistry) and Head of Organic Chemistry Section, Department of Chemistry, Universiti Malaya, as well as the Faculty Mobility Coordinator of Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya. While juggling between teaching, administrative duties, research and many more, she hopes to pursue her interest and catch up research gaps by establishing new collaboration network. 

Dr. Lai Meng Yee graduated with Bachelor of Science degree (Microbiology) in 2006 from Universiti Sains Malaysia. She obtained her Master of Biotechnology in 2011 and Doctorate degree in 2018 from Universiti Malaya. She served as post-doc research fellow at the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine from 2019 to 2024. She is currently serving as a senior lecturer at the same department since July 2024. Dr. Lai’s area of expertise are molecular parasitology, molecular epidemiology and diagnostic kit development. Dr. Lai carries out host parasite interaction study to investigate the relationship between parasites and its’ host cell receptors/ligands. She successful find out the potential host cell binding partner of Toxoplasma gondii during the invasion. Dr. Lai is also interested in exploring the mechanisms of malaria infections and the interactions between infected patients and malaria parasite invasion using a molecular epidemiology approach. She also interested to investigate the distribution of zoonotic malaria parasites, originally transmitted from non-human primates through mosquito bites. Other than that, Dr. Lai also works on the identification and differentiation of human malaria and zoonotic malaria parasites using various molecular techniques, such as real-time PCR analysis, recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) and Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP). By employing these molecular techniques, Dr. Lai has developed numerous diagnostic methods for malaria, SARS-CoV-2, and dengue. These methods and primers had been patented. Dr. Lai’s dedication and hard work have resulted in more than 40 ISI-Cited publications, making substantial contributions to science and technology. Dr Lai also also have been awarded a few times for the innovation in research including Gold, and Medal prizes from Korea Creative Invention Contest, CIC 2017, Cabaran Inovasi  Inklusif 2018 Zon Tengah, World Invention Innovation Contest (WiC) 2018, International Invention Innovation Competition in Canada, iCAN 2022 and Innovasi Kreativiti Teknologi Keusahawanan dan Masyarakat (organized by Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia and Universiti Malaysia Kelantan). To date, she has published more than 40 ISI-cited publications with total citations index of 470 and H-index of 13. Also, she has assisted more than 25 PGs in their research projects. 2 Master and 1 PhD students have completed their study. Recently, she is awarded a research grant from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, to further her zoonotic malaria research. Overall, Dr. Lai’s steadfast dedication to scientific research and innovation has propelled significant progress in disease detection and prevention, highlighting her as an outstanding young scientist and a role model for the scientific community.