Matt Ashfold is an Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. His research covers various aspects of atmospheric and climate science, often with a focus on tropical Asia, and mainly involves a combination of computer models and observational datasets. A recent focus has been on the rapid long-range transport of atmospheric pollution from East Asia towards the tropics, which has important implications for air quality in Malaysia and the wider region and for the stratospheric ozone layer.

Title: Internet of Things for Atmospheric Observation

Prof. Gaopeng Lu, was born on July 28, 1979 in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province. In 2003, Dr. Lu got his Bachelor degree in Atmospheric Science and Management Science from University of Science and Technology of China. From 2004 to 2009, Dr. Lu worked as a research assistant at Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research while studying for the PhD degree in Physics from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (USA).  Thereafter, Dr. Lu worked as a post-doctoral research associate with Prof. Steven A. Cummer at Duke University, to study the remote sensing of charge transfer in lightning and the effects induced by lightning at high altitudes, such as transient luminous events (TLEs) (including red sprites, gigantic jets, and elves) and terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs).

Since 2013, Dr. Lu has been working as a full-time research professor funded by the “100 Talent Program” of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) at the Key Laboratory for Middle Atmosphere and Global Environment Observation, Institute of Atmospheric Physics.  His main research interests include the remote sensing technique of lightning electromagnetic fields and its application.  The current research projects are on the morphology of lightning charge transfer, physical effects of lightning in the mesosphere, and the influence on the near-Earth space: (1) National Key Research and Development Program of China; (2) National Science Foundation Program (including one for the Excellent Youth); and several other open research funds.

Dr. Lu has published more than 50 scientific papers on peer-reviewed journals, including 20 papers as the first or communication author.  Most of his work was published on the high-level geoscience periodicals (e.g., Nature-Geophysics, Geophys. Res. Lett., and J. Geopys. Res.), and highlighted twice by EOS of American Geophysical Union (AGU).  The total SCI citation is more than 600 times.  In particular, the work regarding the morphology of negative CG strokes was highly commented by Prof. Martin Uman as the world famous expert on lightning research.  Dr. Lu has been invited nearly 10 times to give presentations on the international conference, and review research papers for Geophys. Res. Lett., J. Geopys. Res., Terr. Atmos. Ocean. Sci., Radio Science, and Atmospheric Research.

Title: Space Weather

Dr. Alison Copeland is a lecturer in Human Geography specializing in Quantitative Methods and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, UK. Her research interests focus on health inequalities, specifically exploring access to health care for the population. She has previous experience in the NHS as a nurse and in Public Health, working for the Learning Disabilities Observatory as part of the North East Public Health Observatory.

Title: Environmental and Health Sustainability

Associate Professor Dr. Maizatun Mustafa is an environmental law lecturer with Ahmad Ibrahim Faculty of Laws, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). She obtained her LL.B. from IIUM in 1992 and proceeded to obtain her M.C.L. in 1993 from the same University. In 2001, she acquired her Ph.D from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her major area of interest is environmental law and her present research is on transboundary haze pollution.

She is also working on a book project on climate change litigation with the Asia Pacific Center for Environmental Law (APCEL) National University of Singapore (NUS). She has been appointed as a consultant by several Ministries in Malaysia for environmental related projects. She has authored many articles that have been published in numerous publications and presented at many conferences, local and international.

In 2008, she published a monograph with Wolter Kluwer entitled “International Encyclopaedia of Laws: Environmental Law Malaysia”. Then, in 2011, she published a book entitled “Environmental Law Malaysia” with the same publisher. In 2017, she became a trainer for the training of environmental court judges on environmental law at the Judicial and Legal Training Institute Malaysia. During the same year, she was invited by the same institute to train legal and judicial officers on international response to climate change. She is being appointed by the Chief Judge Sabah and Sarawak as an advisor to the Preparation Committee, Environmental Court Rules, Malaysia. At the International level, she is an active member of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law, and the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law.

Title: Policy in Climate Change

Dr. Rawshan Ara Begum is an Associate Professor at the Center for Water Cycle, Marine Environment and Disaster Management (CWMD) in the Kumamoto University, Japan. Previously, she served as an Associate Professor (2013-February, 2018), Senior Lecturer (2008-2013) and Postdoctoral Fellow (2006-2008) at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) and Women Development Officer (1999-2001) at the Department of Agricultural Extension, Ministry of Agriculture, Bangladesh.

Dr. Rawshan obtained her BSc and MS degrees in Agricultural Economics from Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) with First class (honours) 4th position and 1st class 1st position in 1996 and 1998 respectively, and PhD degree in Environment & Development from LESTARI, UKM. Her research interests are in the areas of environmental and natural resource economics, economics of sustainable development, economics of climate change and disaster management, energy economics and environmental valuation.

While Dr. Rawshan working in UKM, she had received about RM 5 million research grants in which RM 1.1 million as Project Leader including international grant such as CCOP (Coordinating Committee for Geoscience Programmes in East and Southeast Asia), FRGS, ERGS, GUP, TRGS, Arus Perdana among others. She has supervised 12 PhD and 3 Master by research students.

Dr Rawshan has published more than 80 articles in the impact factor, indexed and refereed journals, and more than 40 articles in the conference proceedings and book chapters. Her publications achieved high citations (SCOPUS–939; Google Scholar–1709) and h-index (SCOPUS–17; Google Scholar– 20) as of August 17, 2018.

Dr. Rawshan served as Contributing Author (CA) for IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fifth Assessment Report (2011-2014) of the Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. She is again serving IPCC as Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) for the Sixth Assessment Report (2018-2021). She was actively involved in the Vulnerability and Adaptation Working Group of Malaysia’s Second National Communication (2007-2010).

Dr. Rawshan is contributing Oxford University Press (OUP) New York as an Associate Editor (representing Asia Pacific) for Research Encyclopaedia in Environmental Economics (2017-2019). She is a member of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economist (AERE) and was a steering committee member of the Academic Research on Palm Oil Sustainability (ARPOS) Network from 2016-February 2018.

Title: Economic Sustainability