Meet the Team
We are a group of interdisciplinary researchers from Universiti Malaya, University of Plymouth and and Plymouth Marine Laboratory with expertise in governmental governance, economics, social sciences, resource planning and marine ecosystems.
Team Malaysia
Dr Amy Then is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya. She received her PhD degree in Fisheries Science from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, USA. Although her earlier research projects were species and habitat specific, her recent works had been highly interdisciplinary. Her mangrove work includes food web studies, mangrove restoration, socio-ecological dimensions of mangrove-based fisheries, ecosystem service assessments and recently 2 mangrove-related policy initiatives.
She is the Malaysian principal investigator for this project.
Dr Amy Then Yee Hui
Assoc. Prof. Dr Goh Hong Ching
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Goh Hong Ching is a senior lecturer at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Malaya. She earned a Doctor of Natural Science degree (Geography) from Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet Bonn, Germany. Her recent research interests focus on the interface of development and conservation domains and the cross-cutting challenges and implication including the multi-level governance of natural resource and protected areas.
Dr Sahadev Sharma
Dr Sahadev Sharma is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences under Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation) Office, Universiti Malaya. He received his Doctoral Degree from the University of Ryukyus, Japan. He is an expert in Marine and Environmental Sciences specifically for Wetlands, Coastal Habitat and Coastal Management. He has spent extensive years of research on mangroves science and climate change.
Dr Lee Soon Loong
Dr. Lee Soon Loong received his PhD degree in Marine Ecology from the Universiti Malaya. His expertise included marine and estuarine ecology, fish taxonomy and biology, marine trophodynamics and fisheries management. Currently, he is working as a post doctoral research fellow for this project at the Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya.
Nur Fatin Nabilah binti Ruslan
Nur Fatin Nabilah Ruslan is the project manager for NexAMS and at the same time, is doing her Masters of Philosophy degree under Institute of Advanced Studies, Universiti Malaya on how mangrove ecosystem services contribute to Klang Islands coastal communities' well-being. She is graduated from the University of Auckland, New Zealand with a Bachelor of Science (Biological Science).
She has worked for the previous mangrove research project called Netcomfish along with other NexAMS researchers for two years and had a chance to become a visitor student in Plymouth Marine Laboratory for 3 months in the UK.
Nina Ti
Nina Ti is a research assistant with the NexAMS project. She is currently developing her doctoral thesis on private sector involvement in climate mitigation and adaptation. Prior to this, she spent many years in corporate communications where she was involved in stakeholder reporting, media engagement, and content creation.
Cecilia Chu
Cecilia Chu has newly joined the NexAMS project as a research assistant in June 2021. She is currently a postgraduate at the University of Malaya where she looks at the diversity and abundance of larval fishes in the mangrove estuary of Klang Strait, Selangor, from archived plankton samples from 30 years ago and the current ones.
Team United Kingdom
Prof. Melanie Austen
Prof. Mel Austen is Professor of Ocean and Society at the University of Plymouth, UK. For more than 20 years Professor Mel Austen has been leading and delivering a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary research projects and programmes in a marine context within the UK, EU and internationally. She is currently a member of the UK Government’s Natural Capital Committee and of its Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), Chair of the Partnership of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in North Devon.
She is the UK Prinicipal Investigator for this project.
Andrew Edwards-Jones
Mr Andrew Edwards-Jones is a social scientist with the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, United Kingdom. He is an experienced multi-disciplinary researcher, having also worked on numerous research projects at Plymouth University, UK, where he is also an Associate Lecturer, teaching in Qualitative Data Analysis. He holds a Masters in Biological Diversity and is qualified as Associate Fellow in Higher Education Academy.