Dr. Vilashini Somiah is a feminist anthropologist and Senior Lecturer at the Gender Studies Programme at Universiti Malaya. She earned her Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore, an MA from Ohio University, an MRes from Universiti Malaya, and a BA from Universiti Malaya. Her research focuses on underrepresented narratives of women, migrants, and Borneans living in the interiors. She co-edited Revisiting Covid-19 in Malaysia: Plight and Perseverance (UM Press, 2023) and Sabah from the Ground: The 2020 Elections and the Politics of Survival (SIRD/ISEAS, 2021). Her first single-authored book, Irregular Migrants and the Sea at the Borders of Sabah, Malaysia: Pelagic Alliance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), won the Universiti Malaya Award for Outstanding Achievement (ACUM) for Best Social Science Book of 2022 and has received international acclaim and reviews. Dr Somiah is currently working on her fourth book which explores the lives and resilience of Bornean women.  In 2024, Dr. Somiah was a Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, supported by the Henry Luce Foundation and SEANNET. In 2025, she was appointed a Harvard Asia Centre Associate (2025-2026) https://asiacenter.harvard.edu/vilashini-somiah . That same year, she was elected to the Southeast Asia Council at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in the United States, a position she will hold until 2028  https://www.asianstudies.org/about/governance/councils/southeast-asia-council-seac/.  Beyond academia, she writes ethnographic articles on Malaysia’s socio-political landscape. To learn more about her work, visit www.vilashinisomiah.com.      

Dr. Seuk Wai PHOONG is an Associate Professor in the Department of Decision Science, Faculty of Business and Economics, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. She is a member of the Malaysian Mathematical Science Society (PERSAMA). Her research interests include applied statistics, econometrics, time series analysis, bibliometric analysis, and education. She has led 8 research projects out of 24 research grants. She has published papers in various WoS and Scopus journals, such as Sage Open, Artificial Intelligence Review, Humanities and Social Science, Mathematics, International Journal of Mobile Communications, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Energies, Symmetry, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, etc. She is also an academic editor for several journals, including PLOS One, Asian Journal of Business and Accounting, and SAGE Open. She teaches Business Statistics and Quantitative Analysis for Business at the undergraduate level; Research Methodology, Statistical Analysis, and Operational Research at the postgraduate level.

Dr. Nikmatul Adha is currently the Director of the Corporate Performance Centre at Universiti Malaya. She holds both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). In 2011, she was awarded a doctoral degree from USM, specializing in social and physical planning. Dr. Nikmatul Adha began her career as a Research Officer at USM, later serving as a Research Executive at a private consultancy firm before transitioning into academia. Since 2004, she has been a faculty member at Universiti Malaya, where she teaches Urban Management, Community Development Planning, and various planning studio courses. She is also a Graduate Member of the Malaysian Institute of Planners (MIP). Her research interests include participatory urban planning, tourism planning, and community development planning. Dr. Nikmatul Adha has authored several books and academic articles related to her areas of expertise. She is frequently invited as a speaker and forum panellist at national conferences and has served as a visiting lecturer at Nanjing University Jinling College.