AEI-ASEM Summer School 2022

Professor Dr. Sabrina Weithmann is the sustainability officer at Aschaffenburg University of Applied Sciences and is currently working on establishing sustainability in the organization, research, teaching as well as the transfer in student projects. This has also resulted in the initiative for a dedicated Green Office at the university in 2021, which has already initiated a variety of different projects, such as urban gardening or participation in the city cycling project. Sabrina Weithmann teaches at the TH AB for Bachelor and Master students in the subjects Sustainability Management as well as the project-related elective Sustainability.

Madeleine Recknagel, Speaker/ Circular Design Sprint Facilitator & Educator, empowers students, start-ups, NGO’s and companies to explore multidimensional aspects of sustainability from plastic pollution, sustainable design all the way to innovative business models. Her previous role at Bangkok University led to the creation of the Circular Living Lab co-creating with students and different stakeholders’ circular solutions for single-use plastic, fashion waste and urban compost. She currently facilitates the Circular Design Sprint with TH Aschaffenburg, OSTELEA Tourism Management School, Impact Hub Barcelona and others to design out waste, keep materials in use and regenerate the environment.

Outside her work she runs an Urban Permaculture Community Garden raising awareness on cultivating food in cities, composting techniques, preserving seeds and improving soil fertility hence creating community resilience.

Firdaus is the Chief Human Rights Strategist at the Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR). She was previously a practising lawyer and a member of the Malaysian Bar Council. She has worked in various committees under the Bar Council, among others, as Chair of the Constitutional Law Committee, Co-chair of the Human Rights Committee, and Deputy Chair of the Task Force on Police Accountability. She has represented the Malaysian Bar Council in public inquiries.

Firdaus has researched, written, presented, spoken and conducted trainings on a number of issues including constitutionalism, democracy, freedom of expression, academic freedom, security laws, police accountability, protection of migrants and refugees, and Islamic bureaucracy in Malaysia. She guest lectures at the Faculty of Law and Asia-Europe Institute, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia.

In 2016, Firdaus was awarded the Women of the Future award by the UK based Women of the Future organisation due to her work in citizens’ education and empowerment on the Malaysian Constitution and human rights. Firdaus is a recipient of the Chevening Award and thereafter obtained her LLM at SOAS University of London in United Kingdom with a focus on human rights.

Aaron Denison Deivasagayam is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Science, Hiroshima University studying Political Science under the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho:MEXT) Scholarship. Prior to continuing his studies, he worked as the International Programme (IP) Officer at the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur for two years between 2019 to 2021, managing and implementing projects in relation to parliamentary, prison and police reform. He was formerly an alumni of Asia-Europe Institute completing his International Master in Regional Integration in 2017 before working as a Research Assistant at the institute and going on to be a Social Research Officer at the Centre for ASEAN Regionalism University of Malaya (CARUM) until 2018. Aaron has been involved in many local youth advocacy projects and co-founded Demokrat Kebangsaan. a non-government organisation that aims at empowering youths to be involved in nation-building. Among some of the projects led by Aaron under the organisation are Pulang Mengundi Sabah, Sokong Peniaga Kecil, Save SPM 2020, Projek Bantu Rakyat and many others.

Fumitaka Furuoka is a Japanese economist. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Asia–Europe Institute (AEI), Universiti Malaya. Prior to this, he was an Associate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Universiti Malaysia Sabah and a Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. Before joining academia, from 1991 to 1999, Fumitaka Furuoka held the post of Senior Assistant at the Consulate-General of Japan, Penang. His main research interests include economic aspects of global warming and global health as well as hysteresis in unemployment, peace economics, energy economics, population economics and the application of statistical methods in linguistics.

Nurliana Kamaruddin is Deputy Executive Director of Academic and Student Affairs at the Asia-Europe Institute, Universiti Malaya. She obtained her PhD in International Studies specialising in Development Cooperation from Ewha Womans University. Her area of research includes international politics and development with a focus on ASEAN and East Asian relations.