Premalatha Thiagarajan is currently a senior lecturer and the Deputy Dean (Undergraduate and Student Affairs) at the Faculty of Creative Arts, Universiti Malaya. Trained in the Indian classical dances, Bharata Natyam and Odissi, she has staged numerous dance performances and conducted workshops and lecture-demonstrations in Malaysia and abroad. She is the founder of Premalayaa Performing Arts, a company that specialises in Indian classical dance and music. She is a member of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology, World Dance Alliance (WDA) and the Dance Studies Association (DSA). Through her numerous research publications, she has pioneered the study on Indian dance in Malaysia. Her current research interest also focuses on dance as therapy and arts and indigenous tourism. 

Dr. Song Sze Looi is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), Universiti Malaya, specialising in Phylogenomics and eDNA Metagenomics. She obtained her PhD in the field of Algal Biotechnology in 2013. Following her doctorate, she was appointed as a Postdoctoral Researcher on a high-impact research project in Molecular Phylogenetics and Systematics. In 2016, she took on the role of Research Fellow, focusing on Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Bioinformatics. In 2019, Dr. Song joined the China-ASEAN College of Marine Sciences (CAMS) at Xiamen University Malaysia as an Assistant Professor. She returned to Universiti Malaya in 2021 and currently serves as the Program Coordinator for the Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) and the Program Director for Future Studies. Dr. Song’s research integrates high-throughput sequencing technologies and advanced analytical tools to explore the evolutionary relationships and biodiversity of a wide range of organisms, including both marine and terrestrial taxa. Her projects examined the phylogenetic and phylogeographic structures of biota of economic, agriculture and public health importance, such as seaweeds, parasites, insects, and vertebrates, as well as microbial communities associated with host organisms and environmental samples. She has published over 60 WoS–indexed journal articles. In addition, she has led or contributed to numerous research projects funded by national, international, and industry bodies, including the Japan Toray Science Foundation, the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS), the National Conservation Trust Fund (NCTF), and a Petronas-funded project in collaboration with UCSI University. Her recent work focuses on the application of eDNA for assessing marine biodiversity and ecosystem health, particularly in sensitive estuarine and coastal habitats. Her research excellence has been recognized (1) through multiple awards, including being a co-recipient of the Malaysia Toray Science Foundation 2023 Science and Technology Award, and (2) as a lead speaker at conferences.

Amy Then is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya. She obtained her Ph.D. in Fisheries Science from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, USA in 2014. Amy’s research interests are highly diverse and focused on animal- environment-human interactions to inform meaningful, data-driven conservation and management efforts in the coastal and marine realms. Currently, she is working on broad topics of mangrove ecology, restoration and ecosystem services assessment, shark and ray fishery assessment, marine megafauna bycatch and linkages between marine protected area and the well-being of both ecosystems and humans. She co-developed a number of successfully funded local and international proposals that were highly interdisciplinary in the last six years with funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund, Newton Fund, and British Council. To successfully deliver these projects, she had been actively using multiple science and social science approaches and with relevant stakeholder engagements at varying levels. In addition to scientific contributions in high-impact journals that included Scientific Reports, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, and Ecosystems, she also has diverse experiences in organizing international meetings, including the Third International Symposium on Mangroves as Fish Habitat (MAFH3).