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Khoo Ying Hooi is an Associate Professor and Department Head at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, Universiti Malaya. Her research lies at the intersection of human rights, democratisation and civil society actors focusing on Southeast Asia. Her works include “Rethinking Human Rights and Peace in the Post-Independence Timor-Leste through Local Perspectives” (with A.B. da Silva and T.T.P.T. Nguyen, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and “The Bersih Movement and Democratisation in Malaysia” (SIRD/ISEAS and Lexington Books, 2020). Her co-author paper (with C. Leong, I. Faik, F. Tan and B. Tan, 2020), “Digital organising of a global social movement: From connective to collective action," won the 2021 Best Paper Award at the Information and Organization and was Runner-Up in the 2021 Special Interest Group-Grounded Theory Methodology (SIG-GTM). Ying Hooi is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Malaysian Journal of International Relations (MJIR), and she sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Journal of Southeast Asian Human Rights (JSEAHR) and Indonesian Law Review (ILREV). She also leads the UM Research Group on Human Rights.

She has been active in the works on human rights and democracy in Southeast Asia for more than a decade. She holds several other positions, including Scientific Member in the Observatory of Political Alternatives in Southeast Asia (ALTERSEA), Secretary-General in the Society for the Promotion of Human Rights (PROHAM), Board Member in the Innovation of Change - East Asia Governance Circle (EAGC), EXCO Member in Persatuan Aliran Kesedaran Negara (ALIRAN), Vice-Chair in the Courage Fund Cambodia (CFC), and Advisory Panel in the World Alliance for Citizen Participation (CIVICUS) Monitor. She is also a columnist in a local Chinese newspaper, Sin Chew Jit Poh.

Before her academic career, Ying Hooi worked in several corporate sectors and at the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) as the Head of International Issues and Cooperation. She was involved in including an ASEAN human rights body (now AICHR) in the ASEAN Charter, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Malaysia in Geneva and the SUHAKAM Amendment Bill 2009.