Dr. Tang Swee Seong is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, Malaysia. He obtained his B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry in 2000 and M.Sc. in Microbiology in 2004 from the University of Malaya. He was awarded a tutorship by the university for his MSc studies and later received the SLAI fellowship (University Academic Training Scheme) from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia to pursue his PhD at the Australian National University, Australia. He completed his PhD in Molecular Microbiology in 2013 and subsequently returned to Malaysia to take up a tenure-track lectureship at the University of Malaya. Dr. Tang has played a key role as a principal investigator (PI) and has led several research projects, including the Isolation and Characterization of Bacteriophage Against Shigella spp. and Elucidating the Molecular Mechanistic Interaction of Polyvalent Bacteriophages Against Bacterial Hosts. Over the past few years, his research team has characterized a collection of phages targeting Salmonella enterica and other enteric bacteria. He is also interested in developing bacteriophage cocktails as diagnostic and therapeutic agents against multidrug-resistant pathogens in aquatic animals. His ultimate goal is to develop natural alternatives to combat the crisis of multidrug resistance and explore the use of phages in the treatment of infectious diseases in humans and agricultural animals. Dr. Tang served as an editorial board member for the Special Issue on Recent Topics in Life Sciences in the Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences (Elsevier) in 2015. He has also acted as a guest reviewer for numerous national and international journals, including Frontiers in Life Sciences, Malaysian Journal of Science, Carbohydrate Research, JSM Tropical Medicine & Research, Journal of Tropical Agriculture and Food Science, Malaysian Applied Biology, PLoS ONE, Phytochemistry, PeerJ, International Journal of Nanomedicine, Microbial Drug Resistance, Journal of Cellular Physiology, Malaysian Journal of Microbiology, Journal of Health and Translational Medicine, Philippine Journal of Science, and Tropical Biomedicine.      

Sr Dr. Loo Siaw Chuing (Angeline) obtained her Bachelor of Quantity Surveying (Hons) (Distinction, 2008), Master of Science (Building) (Distinction, 2011), and her PhD (Project & Construction Management, 2015) from Universiti Malaya. She has been a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Quantity Surveying since 2016, a registered professional quantity surveyor with BQSM, and a member of RISM since 2020. She was the coordinator for Master of Project Management for 4 years and is currently the coordinator for online distance learning for the Faculty of Built Environment. Dr. Loo teaches undergraduate courses: Principles of Management, Data Analysis, Measurement, Research Methodology, Building Structure, and Research Project and supervises both undergraduate and postgraduate students. Her research interests are project management, risk management, and international construction focusing on project performance and delivery. She also secured 16 internal and external grants with her collaborators. She has published more than 40 international refereed journal papers, 2 books, and 10 conference papers. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Surveying, Construction and Property. She was also the external examiner of SEGi University and is currently one of the Sarawak Course Advisory Committee Members for Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus. She has garnered a few research and service awards. She won two best paper awards (conferences held in Italy and Indonesia), a gold award and novice special award (won with her final year supervisee), a gold award (teaching enhancement research with her colleagues), and other awards. She also received the Certificate of Excellent Service (SPC) in 2020 and the Award of Excellent Service (APC) in 2021. She has been actively serving RISM: organizing committee for RISM research conferences for three consecutive years and secretary for the PAQS Congress 2023. She is also the current committee member for the QS Division 2024/2025 at the RISM. She is an active QS consultant at the University’s consultancy unit known as Unit Perundingan Universiti Malaya (UPUM), where she is involved in both private and public projects.

Afiq received his First-Class Honors Degree in Biotechnology from the Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST) in 2013. He received the MUST President's Award for academic excellence and being the most accomplished student in his class. In 2014, he decided to follow his passion for research and enrolled in an MSc program in Genetic Manipulation and Molecular Cell Biology at the University of Sussex, UK. After completing his MSc program, Afiq gained valuable research experience by working as a research assistant at the Cancer Research Center (CaRC), Institute for Medical Research (IMR) in Kuala Lumpur. In 2015, he was awarded an Academic Training Fellowship (SLAB/SLAI) by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education to pursue his PhD at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. His doctoral research focuses on the discovery of new antiviral HIV-1 and VSV restriction factors. His findings have been published in reputable scientific journals and have gained the interest of the global scientific community. After completing his PhD in 2019, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the MRC-Centre for Virus Research (CVR) at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. In 2020, he returned to Malaysia to work as a senior lecturer in the microbiology program at the Institute of Biological Sciences, Universiti Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur. He currently teaches public health microbiology, diagnostic microbiology, microbial pathogenesis, and virology to undergraduate students. In addition to teaching, he also conducts research on various aspects of microbiology, with a particular focus on viral diseases. His research aims to understand the mechanisms of viral replication and pathogenesis as well as develop novel strategies for the prevention and treatment of viral infections. He actively collaborates with other researchers, both locally and internationally, to contribute to the global understanding of infectious diseases. In 2023, he was awarded a prestigious ASEAN-India Research & Training (A-IRTF) Fellowship from the Department of Science & Technology, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India for 3-month research attachment at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIIT-Delhi).