As a statistician and data scientist with a foundation in statistical inference, I have expanded my expertise in time series and forecasting, mortality modelling, spatial statistics, functional data analysis, Bayesian statistics, machine learning and multivariate statistics through extensive research. I have collaborated with physicists, biologists, computer scientists, and experts from various fields to advance multidisciplinary initiatives. I have also conducted training on applied statistics and time series. Outside academia, I am trained in Indian Carnatic music (National champion), completed Grade 8 Piano from the Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music, London, and play various musical instruments. I find a close relationship between being musically inclined and mathematics.

At Universiti Malaya, Dr. Mohd Norbayusri Baharudin serves as a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Administration and Justice. His primary areas of specialization encompass prison and correctional administration, the rehabilitation and treatment of offenders, community corrections, group-based approaches to therapeutic communities, substance abuse counseling, quantitative research methods, and covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM). He has received advanced training at Daytop Village Inc. in New York, USA, focusing on drug addiction treatment, as well as at the Brush Farm Corrective Services Academy in New South Wales, Australia, specializing in correctional administration. Prior to his academic career, he dedicated two decades to the Malaysian Prisons Department, where he served as a prison officer, rehabilitation officer, and policymaker. Recently, Dr. Norbayusri has contributed to media discussions on the Pelaksanaan Akta Tahanan Rumah (Implementation of the House Detention Act). The discussion can be accessed via the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4ExtX-kOzw&t=496s.

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.