Dr Hariyati Shahrima Abdul Majid, PhD (Consultant Psychologist & Executive Council Member of MERCY Malaysia) is best known for her humanitarian work with MERCY Malaysia, for which she has volunteered for 15 years. She has been deployed to both local and international missions in natural and conflict affected areas, providing psychological first aid to affected communities, setting up and running child friendly spaces and conducting training of trainers, from the Philippines, to Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Lebanon, and the latest, in Turkey/Syria border, servicing the Syrian refugees. She led her MERCY Malaysia team for the MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 aviation disasters, providing support for cabin crew and pilots affected by the tragedies. She is currently leading a team of mental health professionals in providing online psychosocial support for Malaysians in response to Covid19. She is an Advisor to Naluri Hidup. Previously, she served as an academic faculty for 23 years with International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). During her years at IIUM, she served various academic administrative positions such as Head of Department, Deputy Dean (Academic Affairs), Deputy Director (Alumni and Career Services Division) and Director (Office of Industrial Links and Community Relations). She has widely published in various academic journals. While at IIUM, she was awarded “The Best Teacher” award for four years. She is a consultant lecturer for the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Counter Terrorism (SEARCCT, Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and is also now serving as a research member for a project on Countering Violent Extremism and Terrorism in Malaysia and Southeast Asia with ISTAC, IIUM, in collaboration with University of Maryland, US. She was an invited lecturer at the Post War Reconstruction Unit at the University of York, UK.

Dr Nurashikin binti Ibrahim(Public Health Medicine Specialist, Sector Head of Mental Health, Substance Abuse & Violence Injury Prevention, Non-communicable Disease Section, Disease Control Division, Ministry of Health, Malaysia) a medical doctor and Public Health Medicine Specialist received her undergraduate training from University of Malaya. Has been working in the Ministry of Health for past 25 years. Currently she holds the post as Public Health Physician and Sector Head of Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Violence Injury Prevention, Disease Control Division, Ministry of Health. She has been involved in mental health for the past 16 years. Her areas of expertise/knowledge are in Mental Health Promotion Mental Health Services and Psychosocial Support Disaster and Suicide Prevention upon which she received training in Psychosocial Response to Disaster from Hyogo Institute of Traumatic Stress, (HITS) Japan as well as training in Mental Health Promotion & Mental Illness Prevention from Hunter Institute of Mental Health, Australia and Suicide Prevention from AISRAP, Australia. She is also responsible as Head Coordinator of the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Services of Ministry of Health in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia. Also has been involved at the field in many of crisis that has occurred in Malaysia; among them, the unprecedented incident of air tragedy of MH370 and MH17 in 2014, massive flood tragedy between December 2014 to March 2015, pre- deployment and post-deployment for Malaysian field Hospital Cox’s Bazar for Humanitarian Mission for Rohingya’s, October 2017 and chemical waste poisoning tragedy in February 2019. Involved in providing training and mentoring on areas of mental health and mental health in disaster for health care providers and also training for other govt and non-governmental agencies.

Prof Alberto G. Gomes
(Emeritus Professor of La Trobe University) is the Emeritus Professor of La Trobe Univerity, Australia as well as the Global Director of DEEP (Dialogue, Empathic Engagement, and Peacebuilding). His key university roles included The Director of La Trope’s Centre for Dialogue (2013-2014), Member and Deputy Chair of La Trobe University Academic Promotions Committee (2012- 2014), Deputy Leader of the ‘Transforming Human Societies’ Research Focus Area (2013), Member of La Trobe University’s Research and Graduate Studies Committee (2012-2013), Academic Assessor for the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Malaya (2011-2013). He served as advisor and consultant to government and organizations, such as Malaysian Aboriginal Association; the Malaysian Chinese Association; and Member of Board of Consultants of the Mountain Peoples Culture Development Centre, Thailand and International Advisory Board of the Malaysian Academy of Han Studies. He also reviewed a research report for the Australian Bureau of Immigration and Population Research. He also served as Editorial Committee for Asian Ethnicity Journal, Suomen Antropologi (Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society). He was also the academic Assessor for University of Malaya. He is a notable author with numerous publications. To name a few of the books and book chapters, they are “Multiethnic Malaysia: Perspectives on Past, Present and Future”, “Modernity and Identity: Asian Illustrations”, “The Impact of Environmental Changes on Forest Peoples of Southeast Asia in the Twentieth Century” etc. He also contributed his writing in international journals such as – ‘Lessons from the margin: Indigenous peace ecology’. Organicom 15 (28): 149-166; ‘Alter-native Development: Indigenous Forms of Social Ecology’, Third World Quarterly 33(6): 1059-1073 etc. Currently, he is working on an ongoing project focused on the nexus between equality, sustainability and peace.