Siti Zubaidah Ismail's field of expertise is Islamic criminal law and criminal justice. She graduated with Bachelor of Shariah from University of Malaya, Master of Comparative Laws from IIUM, LL.M from Birmingham University and PhD (Malaya). Her main research interest  is on the Islamic law and criminal justice in contemporary Muslim countries, particularly in Southeast Asia. She also focuses on the application of Islamic criminal law on the society  and on the development of Islamic criminal law implementation in Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Her current research is on the intersection between islamic punishment and human rights and the potential of diyat as an alternative to death penalty in Malaysia She is also active in research relating to interaction of Islamic law in society relating to new-Muslim reverts, inter-religious marriage and freedom of religion. She was Visiting Fellow at Asian Law Institute, National University of Singapore in 2010, Visiting Scholar at Faculty of Law Universitas Indonesia in 2016, Visiting Lecturer at UNISSA, Brunei and Visiting Fellow at IAIS in 2022 . She was one of the recipients for AUA Scholars Award 2019 and UI-Resolv Visiting Scholar Awards 2016. She has supervised 17 Phd and 40 masters students. She was Head of the Shariah and Law Department from 2011 until January 2016, Deputy Dean for Humanities and Ethics Research Cluster in 2018 and Deputy Director for Research and Development from 2019-2021. Her contribution in the society is also significant in the area of human rights activism. She is Senior Research Fellow with Centre for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (CENTHRA) since 2017 and Senior Fellow  for Malaysian Alliance of Civil Society Organisations in the UPR Process (MACSA). She has more than 150 articles published and the author of four books.  Her book Undang-Undang Kesalahan Jenayah Syariah di Malaysia won Anugerah Cemerlang Universiti Malaya 2018 and Hadiah Karya Ilmiah 2019 from Dewan Bahasa Pustaka. She also received "Anugerah Penulisan Artikel Terbaik dalam Jurnal Hukum 2019" by Jabatan Kehakiman Syariah Malaysia.  She is married with seven children.

Dr. Hidayah obtained her first degree in Bachelor of Science with Islamic Studies specialized in Ecology and Biodiversity from Universiti Malaya in 2009, under Public Service Department Malaysia scholarship. She then continued her interest in Science Biology at the same university under the National Science Fellowship (NSF), Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation scholarship where she obtained a Master of Science in Molecular Taxonomy in 2013. Afterward, she worked as a Research Assistant to expand her experience in the research world before she continued her PhD. In the year 2015, she received a scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia to pursue her PhD focusing on Bio-ecological and taxonomic studies of Malaysian dragonflies at Universiti Malaya. While completing her PhD, she becomes a recipient of short-term International Program Associates (IPAs) under the International Joint Graduate School Program RIKEN, by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Wako-Shi, Japan in 2016. RIKEN is Japan's largest comprehensive research institution renowned for high-quality research in a diverse range of scientific disciplines. While carrying out her PhD project at RIKEN, she was engaged in the Enzyme Research Team, Biomass Engineering Research Division, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science. The research she has conducted at RIKEN to date aims to demonstrate the micro joint wing properties in the suborder Zygoptera using combined techniques of laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) to explore resilin elasticity investigations and analyze of protein components. In 2018, she completed her PhD and started her career as a part-timer lecturer, and afterward, she has been appointed as Senior Lecturer in 2020 under Ecology Biodiversity Programme, Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya. She currently teaches Animal Behaviour & Ethology and Animal Structure, Function & Physiology subjects to undergraduate students. She has vast experience in teaching and learning starting as a demonstrator back in 2013 and involved in immense research field preliminary back to 2010 and became a reviewer in several peer-reviewed and high impact journals such as PLoS ONE.

Hanafi Hussin is an Honorary Professor at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya.  He has received his Master's Degree and PhD in Cultural and Performing Arts Studies.  His current focus is on Southeast Asian anthropology, particularly ritual and performing arts. He actively researches and publishes on rituals and identity of the Kadazandusun community of Sabah, particularly in Penampang and Tuaran Sabah and Bajau and Bajau Laut/Sama Dilaut of the east coast of Borneo and Southern Philippines. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Creative Arts (2022-2024) and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (2016-2018). Before his retirement, he also served as Head of the Maritime Social Sciences and Humanities Unit, Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences (IOES) and Head of Universiti Malaya Migration Research Centre (UMMRC), Universiti Malaya. He was appointed and served as a Visiting Professor at various universities, Huazhong Agriculture University, Wuhan, China (2024), Thammasat University (2021), Universitas Indonesia (2020-2021) and Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2020). He can be reached at hanafih@um.edu.my.