Professor Ir. Ts. Dr. Chuah Joon Huang received the B.Eng. (First Class Honours) degree from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), M.Eng. degree from the National University of Singapore (NUS), the M.Phil. degree in Technology Policy, a professional practice programme initiated by the Cambridge MIT Institute (CMI) delivered at Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS), and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge, where graduated from Wolfson College, Cambridge and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was honoured for being a Kuok Foundation Scholar and a Commonwealth Scholar. By virtue of his outstanding academic achievements, he was admitted as a Life Member of Golden Key International Honour Society, apart from being a Life Member of Oxford and Cambridge Society Malaysia. On his professional career path, he joined Intel as an IC Design Engineer, contributing to the creation of next generation of network processors. He was then with Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola, SPS & presently NXP Semiconductors) as a Senior Product Development Engineer and Senior Test Engineer, overseeing the product development and project execution of high-performance automotive microcontrollers. Carrying out extensive engineering works globally, he lived in and travelled frequently to various locations such as San Jose @ Silicon Valley, California, Austin, Texas, Suzhou, China, Hong Kong, etc. While working in the multi-national companies, he was a recipient of multiple Silicon Engineering Excellence Recognitions and Technical Excellence Award. At present, he lectures at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya. He assumed the positions of Head of Programme for M.Eng. (Mechatronics) and Head of VLSI and Image Processing (VIP) Research Group. He is a Chartered Engineer registered under the Engineering Council, U.K., and also a Professional Engineer with Practising Certificate (PEPC) registered under the Board of Engineers, Malaysia. He serves in a number of editorial boards, i.e. Journal of Nanoelectronics and Optoelectronics, ASEAN Engineering Journal, IEM Journal, etc. He was invited as a Plenary Speaker for the inaugural IEEE International Microwave, Electron Devices, Solid-state Circuit Symposium (IMESS) in 2016 and a Keynote Speaker for Engineering, Science & Technology International Conference 2018 (ESTIC2018). He was the Special Session Co-Chair for Asia Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA ASC) in 2017. In recognition of his vast engineering knowledge and skills, he has been appointed as Scientific Advisor and Technical Consultant to several companies, e.g. Genome Solutions, Iconix Consulting, TrafficSens, etc. He has been elected as the Honorary Treasurer for IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Malaysia Chapter. In addition, he is currently the Chairman Emeritus of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Malaysia Local Network, the Vice Chairman of the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) and also a Board Member of the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM). He serves in the Governing Board of ASEAN Federation of Engineering Organisations as Secretary General. Apart from that, he serves in the Disciplinary Committee Panel of Advocates and Solicitors Disciplinary Board (ASDB), Bar Council. He is a Fullbright Malaysia Ambassador. He is an award-winning academician nationally and internationally, i.e. Research Excellence Award, National Outstanding Educationist Award and Industry Icon for Educational Leadership & Management. He has been elected as the Fellow of Royal Microscopical Society (FRMS), Fellow of Institution of Engineers Malaysia (FIEM), Fellow of ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology (FAAET), Fellow of Academy of Engineering and Technology of the Developing World (FAETDEW) and Honorary Fellow of ASEAN Federation of Engineering Organisations (Hon. FAFEO). 

  Dr. Juliana Usman is an Associate Professor from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Universiti Malaya. She is a member of the Centre for Applied Biomechanics, UM and the appointed secretary for the Malaysian Society of Biomechanics. She had served as the Head of the Biomedical Engineering Department in the Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaya from 2019 to 2021. She is a certified Chartered Engineer (CEng) from the Engineering Council of UK and a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (UK) and the Board of Engineers (Malaysia). Her research areas are in Sports Biomechanics (Injury Prevention and Performance Enhancement) and in Biomechanics and Motion Analysis. Dr Juliana has been active in research and in obtaining research grants from internal and external resources with 10 grants as the Principal Investigator (PI) and 11 as co-PI totalling to about RM1.5M in research grants. Her research include researches on knee OA biomechanics analysis and intervention, biomechanical investigations on driving simulation including lower limb contributions, muscle fatigue during heavy traffic situation, various biomechanics analysis in sports ie. badminton, bowling, rugby, table tennis, sepak takraw, and also researches on shoulder injury analysis and prevention. Currently she is collaborating with OGAWA and GOODNITE  to investigate the effectiveness of massage chairs on multiple disorders and on sleep study and different mattress specifications. Due to her expertise she has been invited as keynote and invited speakers as well as forum panels at international and local conferences and as experts in various media platforms. She has completed supervision of 4 PhD and 7 Masters students, and currently supervising 4 PhD and 5 Masters candidates.    

  Started his research career in the think tank sector, Dr. Lee Chee Leong (Karl) is attracted to the rise of non-traditional diplomacy in the international order today. Such appeal has taken Dr. Lee into new research horizons that started with his Monash University's doctoral research on the Chinese sub-state diplomacy in China-ASEAN economic cooperation. With constructive supervision by Professor Helen Nesadurai and Associate Professor Kuik Cheng Chwee, Dr. Lee completed his doctoral thesis that unravels how a faraway and least developed sub-state of Guangxi managed to overcome its own hurdles, navigate the complexities within the Chinese state and become the frontline actor in China-ASEAN economic cooperation.  Following his doctoral completion, Dr. Lee's research on non-traditional diplomacy has expanded into Taiwan’s quasi-state diplomacy in Southeast Asia. Such quest has led him spending at great length in comprehending the concept of soft power, a concept that finds its relevance to Taiwan, which has no official diplomatic with Southeast Asia but is heavily connected to the region and has to rely on soft power in its engagements with these Southeast Asian nations. By comparing different case studies of Taiwan's quasi-state engagement within Southeast Asia, Dr. Lee has developed the soft power diffusion process to explain how such phenomenon operates in the real world. His ongoing and incoming research projects include Unpacking ‘De-risking’ China in the Indo-Pacific Region: Economic Statecraft (ES) & Geoeconomics, Taiwan's New Southbound Policy (NSP) and NSP+: The Domestic-International Dichotomy, The Taiwanese Connections in Nvidia's Global AI Supply Chain and Taiwan and Ireland: The Story of Two Tech Powerhouses.  To date, Dr. Lee was the recipient of several scholarships and fellowships in Malaysia and overseas: University of Malaya’s Graduate Fellowship (2010-2011); Monash University’s Merit Scholarship (2016-2019); Chinese Government Scholarship (2018-2019); and Taiwan Fellowship (2020). Prior to his appointment as Senior Lecturer at the Institute of China Studies (ICS), he was the Visiting Scholar at Guangxi University for Nationalities (GXUN) (2018-2019), Taiwan Fellow at National Chengchi University (NCCU) (2020) and Associate Fellow at ICS UM (2016-2019). He welcomes any potential PhD candidate who would like to work on Taiwan-Southeast Asia relations, comparative cases of ES between Asia and Europe, US-China-ASEAN semiconductor geoeconomics and case studies of donut economies in Asia. He is also willing to discuss with potential doctoral candidates on proposals related to the Chinese sub-state (provincial and city) diplomacy toward ASEAN, comparative cases of sub-state diplomacy between Asia and Europe as well as conceptual innovations of sub-state diplomacy vis-a-vis soft power.