Azirah Hashim is a Professor in the English Language Department, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics and currently, Executive Director of the Asia-Europe Institute and Director of the Centre for ASEAN Regionalism, University of Malaya. Prior to this, she was Dean of the Humanities Research Cluster and Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics. She has been involved in regional initiatives such as narrowing the development gap through education in Cambodia and Laos, ASEAN mobility initiatives in higher education and researches on language contact and language education in ASEAN. She is currently President of the Malaysian Association of Applied Linguistics and Vice-President of the International Association of Applied Linguistics. In 2009, she was awarded the Georg Forster Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany and is a Fellow of the Foundation.