Principal Investigator
Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh
Email: wanf.ajusoh[at]monash.edu
Current role
Wan is currently a Senior Lecturer and Honours Program Director at the School of Science, Monash University Malaysia. She teaches and coordinates the following units:
- BIO3820 – Tropical Terrestrial Ecology (Semester 2: June-Nov)
- ENV2726 – Global Conservation & Biodiversity (Semester 2: June -Nov)
- SCI2800 – Human Ecology & Biodiversity (Summer Semester: November-December)
Her primary research focuses on the taxonomy, systematics, and conservation of fireflies in Southeast Asia and the Australopacific region.
Other research interests
She started out as someone interested in conservation biology. Initially, her main interest was in fireflies in the mangroves of Malaysia. Although she has expanded her interests and scope of work since then, her primary focus remains firefly biology. She has also gradually become an insect taxonomist and systematist, with a keen interest in developing and mobilising species-based digital data from museum collections, particularly material collected in former colonial museums in Southeast Asia. During her 5+ years at the National University of Singapore, she was involved in projects at the crossroads between biodiversity research and the history of natural heritage. From 2019–2022, she managed and coordinated a large-scale project at LKCNHM to digitally repatriate original specimens of Singapore animals held in custodian museums—one aspect of Singapore’s natural heritage that has been ‘lost’ in deep history. This heritage project was built on the results of the previous digital imaging project, Wallace-Singapore (2017-2019), on which she also served as project manager.
Education
- 2015 – PhD in Entomology (Universiti Putra Malaysia) with a PhD training in Biology from University of Turku, Finland (Erasmus Mundus scholarship, 2011-2014, supervised by Niklas Wahlberg)
Appointments
- Co-Chair IUCN Species Survival Commission – Firefly Specialist Group (2022–)
- Honorary Secretary, Fireflyer International Network (FIN) Steering Committee (2025–2028)
- Fellow International, The Explorers Club
- Associate Editor for Entomology – Raffles Bulletin of Zoology (2022 –)
- Editorial Board Member, Journal of Tropical Biology & Conservation (2025 –)
Lab members
Fathan A. Muharraran
PhD student (Sept 2025 to present) / Project Coordinator for Mangrove Firefly Conservation Action Plan (MyMaFCAP)
Fathan graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree from Monash University. During his undergraduate studies, he discovered his passion for ecology while investigating the impacts of artificial lights on firefly populations. He now aims to incorporate integrative taxonomy and systematics to understand resilient fireflies in urban forests. His curious nature often leads to different interests and hobbies – from music and art to sports and nature observation. Despite his wide-ranging interests, he remains consistent in his passion to understand nature.
Connect with Fathan at LinkedIn: Fathan Anandadzikra Muharraran
Tan Wei Jack
Master of Science student (Sept 2025 to present) – Captive breeding of fireflies
Jack graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) with a major in Tropical Environmental Biology from Monash University. He has been working with fireflies for 2 years, both in the field and in the lab. His work involves rearing and breeding various firefly species to better understand their behaviour and life cycles.
Connect with Jack at LinkedIn: Wei Jack Tan
Sofwan Bin Badrud’din
PhD student (December 2025 – Taxonomy and systematics of macromoths
Sofwan graduated from the University of Malaya with a major in Zoology and later completed his Master’s degree at Imperial College London. His research focuses on documenting Lepidoptera, particularly moth diversity and exploring their ecological and evolutionary relationships in Peninsular Malaysia. His work in databasing and digitising Henry Barlow’s historic Lepidoptera collection represents the first effort of its kind in West Malaysia, contributing valuable resources for future biodiversity and conservation research. His future research will focus on moth species specialising in swamp ecosystems, aiming to understand their ecological and evolutionary relationships within these fragile environments.
Connect with Sofwan at LinkedIn: Sofwan Badr
Zaydhameed Fajurdeen
Honours student (July 2025 to present) – DNA delimitation in fireflies
Hailing from Colombo, Sri Lanka, Zayd has been volunteering in the conservation sphere since high school. Zayd pursued a Bachelor of Science at Monash University Malaysia, majoring in Tropical Environmental Biology with a minor in Genetics and Genomics. Currently, Zayd is pursuing his honours year, during which his research focuses on the population genomics of urban fireflies in the Klang Valley. This project combines Zayd’s deep passion for wildlife with his keen interest in genomic studies. Outside the lab and field, Zayd enjoys writing poetry, watching movies, and powerlifting.
Connect with Zayd at LinkedIn: Zaydhameed Fajurdeen
Ting Guan Liang
Honours student (July 2025 to present) – Herpetofauna diversity
Guang Liang is a guy who loves animals. His passions stem from watching Animal Planet and Nat Geo Wild during his childhood. He interned as a zookeeper and presenter, which deepened his love for wildlife. He is currently an honours student studying the diversity and species composition of herpetofauna in an urban green space. He hopes to achieve a great thing when he graduates.
Connect with Liang at LinkedIn: Guang Liang Ting
Katherine Anne Vyhnal (Katie)
Visiting Researcher (Sept 2025 to June 2026) – Zombie ants ecology
Katie graduated from Occidental College with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology. During her undergraduate studies, she worked in a Microbial Symbiosis lab, where she cultivated her interest in fieldwork through tropical ecology and organismal symbiosis research, studying planthoppers in Costa Rica and their symbiotic gut bacteria. She is joining Monash as a Fulbright-National Geographic awardee to conduct preliminary genetic research on the parasitic relationship between ants and Ophiocordyceps fungi.
Connect with Katie at LinkedIn: Katherine (Katie) Vyhnal
Nicholas H. L. Tan
Research Associate (since 2024) – Filming fireflies
Nicholas holds a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology from Monash University and is passionate about wildlife photography, insects, reptiles, and plants. Previously, he worked in the private sector, specialising in breeding beneficial insects, identifying agricultural pests and crop management. Previously, he interned at Monash University and worked on ant-plant interactions, specimen curation, and insect identification. He is currently helping the lab film fireflies to create a database of firefly flash patterns for Malaysian species.
Connect with Nicholas at LinkedIn: Nicholas (H.L.) Tan
Hooi Cheen Teng
Research Assistant (2026) – Digitisation of entomofauna
Cheen Teng graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Biology from the University of Sheffield, UK. While she has always had an interest in insects, her passion for entomology was further fueled through voluntary work on curating insect specimen collections and population surveys of Odonata species. She is assisting with a project on digitising entomofauna collections from Gunung Mulu National Park.
Connect with Cheen Teng at LinkedIn: Cheen Teng
Alumni
Jerome Chan Tse Quan
Honours Student – Tropical Environmental Biology (Graduated in November 2025)
Jerome did his honours thesis and graduated with a major in Tropical Environmental Biology from Monash University Malaysia. His project focused on visualising firefly species richness in Malaysia using specimens from natural history collections. He enjoys being in nature and is an animal lover. He is currently an Associate in Climate Change and Sustainability Services at EY Malaysia.
Connect with Jerome at LinkedIn: Tse Quan Chan
WAN JUSOH LAB 