On this episode of #TheFutureIsFemale Melisa Idris speaks with Dr Vilashini Somiah, Senior Lecturer with the Gender Studies Programme, at Universiti Malaya’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dr Vila was recently elected the 2026-2028 Chair of the Southeast Asia Council at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in the US. The AAS is the governing body of the world’s largest academic organisation dedicated to Asian Studies, and Dr Vila is the first-ever Southeast Asian scholar based in Southeast Asia to chair Southeast Asia Council since the Council's founding in 1970.
