Effariza Hanafi received the B.Eng. in Telecommunications (first class honours) from the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, S.A., Australia, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2014, respectively. She joined the Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she is now a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering. She is actively involved in research as a principal investigator and has secured research grants from Fundamental Research Grants Scheme (MOE, Malaysia) and internal research grants in Universiti Malaya. She has published more than 40 journal papers in ISI-indexed publications and refereed conference papers. She is an active reviewer for numerous high-quality journals such as IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Access and several international conferences such as IEEE Global Communications Conference.   She is currently a Senior Member for IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). She was the recipient of the MARA Scholarship for undergraduate study, and the Codan Achievement Prize in 2010. She was also the recipient of Scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education and University of Malaya, Malaysia for her doctoral studies, and the best student poster presentation at the Australian Communications Theory Workshop (AusCTW) 2013. In 2015, she was the recipient of the University of Malaya Excellence Awards. She was an awardee for financial support from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for AUN/SEED-Net Regional Conference on Computer and Information Engineering (RCCIE) 2018.   Her main research interests span widely across the area of Internet of Things (system integration, smart system), wireless communication (5G networks, channel characterization, cooperative and distributed communications, non-orthogonal multiple access), RF technologies (PCB fabrication, UHF RFID tag antenna) and optical communications (fiber laser and sensor).

Mohd Hafiz Jamaludin is a senior lecturer in the Department of Shariah and Law, Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya. He is a graduate of Al-Azhar University, Egypt, in 2007, with a degree in Shariah Islamiah. In 2009, he pursued postgraduate studies in the Department of Shariah and Law, Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya, specializing in the Law of Fatwa. He completed his postgraduate studies in 2011. Subsequently, he received sponsorship from the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia under the Bumiputera Academic Training Scheme (SLAB) to pursue his doctoral studies in Shariah Law in 2012 at the same university. Throughout his doctoral studies, he had the opportunity to attend courses in Arabic language and Islamic Studies Methodology at the Islamic University of Madinah, Saudi Arabia, in 2013, and the Student Exchange Program at The Istanbul Foundation for Science and Culture, Turkey, in 2014. He completed his doctoral studies in 2016. He has been involved in various research projects led by his supervisor, Professor Dato’ Dr Ahmad Hidayat Buang, in the fields of fatwa and Islamic finance. Furthermore, he led a research project in the field of Islamic finance funded by the Ministry of Education, University of Malaya, and INCEIF in 2017. He has published several articles in the fields of Shariah, fatwa, and Islamic finance in local and international journals, as well as presented at national and international conferences. He is the first of three siblings, is married to Norlaila Md Yusof and is blessed with three children.

Dr Sam is a medical graduate from the University of Nottingham in the UK, and completed his postgraduate training in Medical Microbiology in London. He joined the University of Malaya in 2005. He is head of the diagnostic virology and advanced (molecular) diagnostics units in the University of Malaya Medical Centre, a 1000-bed tertiary referral centre. His clinical diagnostic work includes expanding molecular diagnostic services and involvement in hospital responses to emerging infectious diseases such as COVID-19. He teaches both undergraduates and postgraduates. His research interests cover clinical, epidemiological, diagnostic and pathogenesis aspects of chikungunya virus and other arboviruses, respiratory viruses (including influenza and SARS-CoV-2), and enterovirus A71, and he has held several national and international grants.