Dr. Serina is a Southeast Asian Studies Department (NUS) lecturer, teaching environmental politics; religion, magic, and anything about Southeast Asia by sea. Trained as a conservation scientist specialising in seagrass human-habitat interactions, her practice is in community empowerment through citizen science, community research and ecotourism. She also studies artisanal fisheries resource management; all of which is done at Kelab Alami, a community organisation in Johor, Malaysia that she co-founded in 2008. Her work to support this community and its efforts to participate in and benefit from encroaching urbanisation has earned both the organization and herself myriad awards and media recognition. Her research also includes (un)sustainable development (especially Forest City), Malaysian rural politics and political ecology. Serina is an Iskandar Malaysia Social Hero Award Winner for Environmental Protection (2014), is Malaysia’s Ambassador for Citizen Science Asia, a UN-affiliated organization, and was highlighted as a Channel News Asia Climate Warrior in 2021.