Prof Emmanuel Tsekleves
Co-Director, Lancaster University
Prof Sabine-Salima Chaouche
Co-Director, Sunway University

Dr Emmanuel Tsekleves is a Professor in Design in Global Health Design Innovation and the Co-Director of the Future Cities Research Institute at Lancaster University. Emmanuel is the convenor for the Design Research Society Special Interest Group on Global Health. His research addresses the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in health and wellbeing, championing a ‘Blue Zone’ lifestyle (people living healthy into old age), by involving stakeholders and communities in the business of health, so that we and the planet can stay healthy. Emmanuel has published over 100 articles in international research publications and his research has been featured by national and international media outlets reaching over 15 million readers. 

Professor Sabine Chaouche is a historian. She holds two doctorates (Université de Paris Sorbonne and The University of Oxford) and a habilitation (Sorbonne). She has published numerous works on culture and the arts in an urban context, as well as on consumer cultures in nineteenth-century Oxford (including four monographs). She is interested in the history of emotions and is currently developing a project on how migrants have experienced cities in Southeast Asia through the ages.

Prof Nick Dunn
Digital Cities Theme Lead, Lancaster University
Dr Richard Wong
Digital Cities Theme Lead, Sunway University

Nick Dunn is Executive Director of ImaginationLancaster where he is also Professor of Urban Design. His research into urban futures has been funded by the AHRC, EPSRC, the UK’s Government Office for Science and the Ministry of Defence. Nick’s expertise on cities, futures, and design led to his appointment as an Ambassador for the Design Council. He is also an Official Advocate for the International Dark Sky Association in recognition of his ongoing work to protect the night skies for present and future generations. Nick has worked with the Alliance for Healthy Cites, European Commission, World Health Organization, and sits on various scientific committees and advisory boards. He has curated exhibitions and given talks at public festivals and conferences around the world. His recent publications include Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing (2020), Rethinking Darkness: Cultures, Histories, Practices (2020), and Future Cities: A Visual Guide (2020).

Dr Richard Wong graduated with his Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in 2012, and his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford in July 2018. He is currently a senior lecturer in the Department of Computing and Information Systems and the Programme Leader of Bachelor of Information Systems (Honours) (Data Analytics). His research interests focus on the application of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly evolutionary algorithms and swarm intelligence in the area of smart transportation system and robotics.

Dr Keivan Navaie
Digital Cities Theme Lead, Lancaster University
Dr. Pauline Pooi Yin Leong
Digital Cities Theme Lead, Sunway University

Dr Keivan Navaie (Senior Member, IEEE) is a Reader on AI and Cyber-Physical-System at the School of Computing and Communications. His research interests include distributed cloud and edge computing, dependable connectivity in cyber-physical systems, applications of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cognitive communications networks. Keivan is also interested in the scaling behaviour of complex systems, especially networks and cities. He serves on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. He is a fellow of IET, a Senior Fellow of HEA, and a Chartered Engineer in the UK.

 

Associate Professor Dr. Pauline Pooi Yin Leong has more than 15 years of academic experience in universities. She received her Ph.D. in Political Communication from Monash University and her Master’s in Communication from Nanyang Technological University, where she was also awarded the Pearson Education Gold Medal Award for Best Graduating Student. A qualified lawyer by training, she has also worked as a journalist at Singapore Straits Times. Her research areas of interest include freedom of speech, digital media, and political communication, where she has received internal and external grants. Dr. Leong has also collaborated with researchers on projects on religion and psychology, as well as food and culture. She is the author of Malaysian Politics in the New Media Age: Implications on the Political Communication Process, a book published by Springer, and recently completed a visiting fellowship with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

Dr Mageswari Ranjanthran
Liveable Cities Theme Lead, Sunway University
Prof Roger Pickup
Liveable Cities Theme Lead, Lancaster University

Dr Mageswari Ranjanthran is a professional marketeer with significant experience in leading corporate marketing and internal communications for multi-million dollar companies across diverse industries for several years before she chose to enter academia. She is experienced in academic and consultancy research, from the development of new ideas to problem-solving, conceptual and content development with a competitive advantage. She has over a decade’s lecturing experience, mainly in the areas of tourism, innovation, digital economy and marketing. Dr Mageswari has obtained inter-disciplinary degrees in Communication, Tourism Development and Tourism Planning/Sustainable Tourism Development, and conducted research for her PhD in behavioural intention of European tourists to Malaysia. Presently, her research interest focuses on tourism marketing, holistic well-being, healthy ageing and small-scale sports events tourism. She is a certified trainer for Global e-commerce Talent (GET) from Alibaba Business School. She actively participates in international academic events as workshop trainer, keynote speaker, session chair and moderator. She is an active member of the South East Asia Research Academy (SEARA) and also Leading the Publication Team for Batch 4 and 5 in SEARA.

Roger Pickup is Chair of Biomedicine and Life Sciences in the Division of Biomedicine and Life sciences. His research interests lie in ‘Environment and human health’ with expertise in molecular microbial ecology/environmental microbiology. He is particularly interested in non-tuberculous mycobacteria and their environmental routes for human exposure. Of main interest here is Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (Map), which causes inflammatory bowel disease (Johne’s disease) in most animals. With collaborators, he is examining Map’s role in Crohn’s disease, a similar human inflammatory condition. Map is significantly associated with this crippling disease, and they seek to ascertain whether it is causal. They will further examine this in the FCRI Liveable Cities seed corn project ‘Inflammatory Bowel Disease: An emerging tale of two continents with an urgent need for early resolution’. Other major projects include: Interventions to improve WASH in Sub-Saharan Africa and antibiotic resistance in the natural and hospital environments. 

Dr Kirsti Ashworth
Liveable Cities Theme Lead, Lancaster University
Dr Ooi Pei Boon
Liveable Cities Theme Lead, Sunway University

Kirsti Ashworth is an Atmospheric Scientist whose research focuses on the intersection of land, atmosphere and society spanning air pollution and climate, urban design and green-blue-grey space, and mental health and wellbeing. She brings techniques including laboratory experiments, in-situ observations, questionnaires and surveys, and computer simulations to explore how the interactions between the land surface and the atmosphere affect us, and how our actions and behaviours affect our environment. She investigates the influence of urban outdoor public space on health and wellbeing and health inequities. From developing advice for policymakers and planners in the use of green space to improve urban air quality, she has become increasingly interested in the wider societal benefits (and disbenefits) of such places. She is currently working with a range of partners to elucidate the attributes that improve health and wellbeing for different communities and people.  

Dr Ooi Pei Boon obtained her PhD in Guidance and Counselling from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). She is a registered practitioner counsellor with the Board of Counsellors (Malaysia) and was appointed as a panel counsellor with the Malaysian Bar Council. Dr Ooi is trained to use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) as one of the tools and techniques in her counselling practice. She is also the Master Trainer for the Media Heroes Programme, a cyberbullying intervention programme in Malaysia. Her passion in research lies in psychological wellbeing, cyberbullying, student experience and public health. Dr Ooi is the principal investigator of the Malaysia Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) whose focus is on cyberbullying incidents among visually impaired youths, and recently has been awarded industrial grants to develop COVID-19 vaccination intervention programmes, focusing on the underserved community (elderly and B40 groups in Malaysia).

Dr Goh Yi Sheng
Resilient Cities Theme Lead, Sunway University
Prof Juliana Sutanto
Resilient Cities Theme Lead, Lancaster University

Goh Yi Sheng is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts at Sunway University. She is a design researcher who has broad interest in creating solutions for a better society, among which include community sustainability, place making, healthy ageing, and consumer research. As part of the effort of FCRI Resilient Cities theme, Dr Goh is working on disaster relief management targeting senior citizens in order to enhance the resiliency in urban Malaysia. Currently, she is also working on a place making project of fishing villages in Malaysia and a time banking project for elder orphans in Malaysia. In addition to these topics, she has published papers on design/aesthetic research, branding, and consumer behaviour.

Juliana Sutanto graduated from the School of Computing, National University of Singapore with a PhD degree in Information Systems. Since August 2015, she is a Professor in Information Systems at Lancaster University. Integrating design science and behavioural science, her key research interests include digitalisation (technology implementation and digital transformation), data driven decision (technology assisted decision and policy-making), and future of work and society (technology innovation and use). Resilience underlies digitalisation process and outcomes, can be built on data driven decision, and is a critical element of the future of work and society. Across her research, she actively engages with local and international stakeholders as she is not only pursuing research publications but also aspiring to make real impacts in organisations and societies. Her research on digital transformation aided an organisation towards its transition to Industry 4.0. Another research on information systems for resilience and disaster management is in close communications with relevant stakeholders to ensure relevance.

Prof. Ts. Dr. Angela Amphawan
Resilient Cities Theme Lead, Sunway University
Prof Yang Hu
Resilient Cities Theme Lead, Lancaster University

Prof. Ts. Dr. Angela Amphawan received her PhD in optical communications from University of Oxford, UK. She then won the prestigious Fulbright Award to work on optical devices and networks at the Research Laboratory of Electronics and MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. She currently leads the Photonics Laboratory at Sunway University. She is currently on the National 5G Task Force for development of 5G infrastructure. She also serves on the IEEE Joint Sensor and Nanotechnology Councils. She has won the International Academic Award by the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, several Excellent Service Awards, Teaching Awards, Best Paper Awards and exhibition medals. She is also a recipient of the distinguished Telekom Malaysia scholarship. Her research has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation, Telekom Malaysia and Ministry of Higher Education.

Dr. Yang Hu is a Professor in Sociology and Data Science. He is also an expert Fellow at the Lancaster University China Centre. Yang was a former early career fellow at the Work-Family Researchers Network, USA, and he obtained his PhD in sociology, as a Gates Scholar, from the University of Cambridge. Yang’s research focuses on changing work-family, intimate, and gender relations in a global context. He is an editorial board member of the Journal of Marriage and FamilySociology, and Sociology Compass. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, he has conducted research on the implications of the pandemic for social inequalities and people’s wellbeing in a cross-national context. His interest in the FRCI focuses on social (in)equality in urban developments. For more information, please visit his website.

Prof Yuka Fujimoto
Sustainable Cities Theme Lead, Sunway University
Prof Mohamed Kheireddine Aroua
Sustainable Cities Theme Lead, Sunway University

Yuka Fujimoto is a Professor in Business Management and Associate Dean (Research and Postgraduate) at Sunway’s Business School. Her research areas include community-business interface for creating inclusive business; inclusive human resource management policies and practices; and work-life enrichment for different social groups.  She holds a Bachelor of Business Management First Class Honours from the University of Queensland and a PhD in Business Administration from Monash University. She has published over 30 journal articles and book chapters to date, with research published in leading journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, Business and Society and British Journal of Management. She is a recipient of best paper proceedings at Academy of Management and Asia Academy of Management conferences. She is also an author of a textbook, Human Resource Management (Pearson), which approaches the topic from a wellbeing perspective. She is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Management & Organization and served as an executive member of Academy of Management (AOM), U.S. Diversity Inclusion Theme Committee, focusing on Member Inclusion at AOM. Currently, she is serving as part of the global committee in AOM, Organizational Behavior division.

Profesor Kheireddine is the Associate Dean (Research and Postgraduate Studies) and Head Centre for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Utilisation School of Engineering and Technology. His research addresses the fundamental and technical issues related to water, energy and environment. He is interested in developing green solvents, sorbents and processes for CO2 capture and utilisation; treatment of water and wastewater using novel adsorbents and advanced electrochemical processes; production of biodiesel and transformation of its by-products to value-added chemicals; and providing safe water to communities in remote areas through the application of membrane technology. He has supervised the completion of 22 PhD and 20 Master’s students. His research has generated more than 150 articles in ISI-ranked journals and over 5,000 citations, and his h-index is 38.

Dr Alison Stowell
Sustainable Cities Theme Lead, Lancaster University
Prof Kirk Semple
Sustainable Cities Theme Lead, Lancaster University

Alison Stowell is a senior lecturer at the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology, Lancaster University and co-Principal Investigator for the UK Research and Innovation Natural Environment Research Council funded Plastic Packaging in People’s Lives: Rethinking the consumer attitude and behaviour gap. She is a qualitative social science researcher, and her research focuses on societal, organisational and management responses to waste. She has collaborated and led on numerous interdisciplinary projects and been funded by URKI (NERC; ESRC); REPIC LTD; JTAC WEEE Fund; WBCSD (not for profit) and Nestle. During  this time she has been attentive to electronic waste, but more recently her interest has broadened to other complex forms of waste handling such as plastics.  Her research has been published in management and organisation, environmental studies, material science and ethnography journals and co-authored book chapters and books.

Kirk Semple is a Professor of Environmental Microbiology with over 35 years of research experience. He was first appointed as a Lecturer in Environmental Microbiology and Ecotoxicology in 1995 and promoted to Professor of Environmental Microbiology in 2010. In 2018, he was appointed as Visiting Professor at the University of Benin, Nigeria and in 2021, he was appointed as Visiting Professor at Igbinedion University, Nigeria. His main fields of research interest include pollution microbiology; fate, behaviour and availability of organic chemicals in soils; risk assessment and bioremediation of contaminated land. Most recently, a focus has been on bioenergy and the use of microorganisms for energy generation and the application of resulting by-products as soil amendments or alternatives to conventional fertiliser, with partners in UK, the EU, Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zambia. Funding has come from multiple sources in the UK, EU, industry and internationally, equating more than £16 M. He has successfully supervised 55 PhD students, with 38 from overseas. Output from his research has led to the publication of over 250 peer-reviewed journal papers, book chapters and refereed international conference papers.

Dr Stephen T. Homer
FCRI Impact and Engagement Lead, Sunway University
Prof Konstantinos Zografos
Startegic advisor to Resilient Cities Theme, Lancaster University

A university lecturer, administrator and scholar with extensive experience of working cross-culturally with a variety of students and work colleagues.  Stephen, made the mid-career transition to academia after working as a retail manager, commercial fisherman, as well as a fishmonger which allowed for first hand experiences of the sustainability challenges we face and is a core driver of his endeavours.  Stephen is a clear, concise communicator and tentative relationship builder who is able to work well with students, colleagues and the public, pursing to engage with a magnitude of stakeholders to ensure a holistic approach to sustainability solutions. He is well-skilled in delivering formal lectures, workshops, seminars and public events on a variety of topics using a magnitude of digital tools to cater for in-person and online engagements. Seeking to develop impactful research and utilise academic studies for their tangible and implementable benefits to academia, business and society at large.

Prof. Konstantinos G. Zografos, Distinguished Professor, Director Centre for Transport and Logistics (CENTRAL), at Lancaster University Management School (LUMS).  His professional expertise, research and teaching interests include applications of Operational Research in Transportation and Logistics. Research areas relevant to Resilient Cities include  mathematical models and algorithms for optimizing: i) emergency response logistics for natural and man-made disasters including, evacuation management, disaster relief personnel routing and scheduling, , distribution of relief supplies,  ii) Green Urban Last Mile Logistics, iii)Mobility as a Service (MaaS), iv) Electric Car Sharing systems.