Researchers and academics on Indonesia at the University of Melbourne
FACULTY OF ARTS
Sander Adelaar studied Indonesian languages and cultures and Austronesian linguistics at Leiden University, where he also lectured. He was a research fellow in Linguistics at the Australian National University and a Humboldt Fellow at Goethe University (Frankfurt) before coming to the University of Melbourne. His research includes comparative and descriptive linguistics with emphasis on varieties of Malay and the languages of Borneo (where he has conducted extensive field research), Madagascar and Taiwan. He is also interested in the oral and written literary traditions of Indonesia.
Azad is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the School of Social & Political Sciences, and a member of the Policy Lab at the University of Melbourne. His research interests lie at the intersection of comparative social policy in Southeast Asia, policy design, and public financial management. At the University of Melbourne, he teaches Public Policy Design & Implementation, and Public Policy in an Asian Century.
Annisa R. Beta is a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the School of Culture and Communication, the University of Melbourne. Her research is broadly concerned with youth, new media, and political subjectivity in Southeast Asia. Before moving to Melbourne, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore, from 2018 to 2019. She received her Ph.D. from National University of Singapore in 2018. She has published her work in New Media & Society, International Communication Gazette, and Media and Communication. She has also published her writing with South China Morning Post, The Jakarta Post, and anotasi.com.
Ana Dragojlovic is working at the intersection of feminist, queer, postcolonial, and affect theory with a primary focus on gender and mobility; violence, memory, and trauma. She is the author of Beyond Bali: Subaltern Citizens and Post-Colonial Intimacy (Amsterdam University Press 2016, forward by Michael Herzfeld) and published numerous chapters and articles about Indonesia.
Rachael Diprose currently teaches in the Master of Development Studies, and in executive education programs with the Melbourne School of Government. Her research focuses on the political economy and sociology of conflict, state-building and development. Her work also explores the dynamics of contention in decentralisation and multi-level governance, with a particular focus on the resource and land sectors and emerging field of climate change mitigation. She is an advisor on several development programs in Indonesia (including women’s empowerment programs).
Wulan Dirgantoro is a Lecturer in Art History and Curatorship at the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests are gender and feminism, and trauma and memory in Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art, with a special focus on Indonesia and Timor-Leste. Her publications including Feminisms and Indonesian Contemporary Art: Defining Experiences (Amsterdam University Press, 2017) and ‘Aesthetics of Silence: Exploring Trauma in Indonesian Painting 1970-1980’ in Ambitious Alignment: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art (Power Publication and the National Gallery of Singapore, 2018). She has also contributed to various art publications in Asia, Australia and UK on Indonesian and Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art. Prior to her current role she was a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow (2018-2021), a lecturer at the MA Asian Art Histories program at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore (2014-2016) and research fellow of Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices 2016/2017 program, at the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin.
Michael Ewing is a Associate Professor in Indonesian at Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne. His area of expertise is Indonesian and Javanese Linguistics, as well as language endangerment.
Andy Fuller research Indonesian literature, the politics of sport and urbanisation and the negotiating of Indigenous identity in Australian sport. He has published in a number of refereed journals and authored texts on literature, sport, as well as having translated works by noted Indonesian authors Afrizal Malna and Budi Darma.
Vedi Hadiz is the Director and Professor of Asian Studies at the Asia Institute and an Assistant Deputy Vice-Chancellor International, University of Melbourne. He was previously Professor of Asian Societies and Politics at Murdoch University’s Asia Research Centre and Director of its Indonesia Research Programme. An Indonesian national, he was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in 2010-2014. His research interests revolve around political sociology and political economy issues, especially those related to the contradictions of development in Indonesia and Southeast Asia more broadly, and more recently, in the Middle East.
Benjamin Hegarty is an anthropologist specialising in gender and sexuality studies. Benjamin’s dissertation research investigated this concern in the Indonesian context, investigating how and in what ways globalised knowledge about sex/gender/sexuality shaped the emergence of distinctive national cultures of transgender femininity.
Edwin Jurriëns is an Associate Professor and Deputy Dean of International Engagement, Indonesia and previously the Convenor of the Indonesian Studies program at the Asia Institute of the Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne. Edwin’s research, teaching and engagement interests are in contemporary art, media, culture, language and society in Asia, particularly Indonesia. His most recent books are the monograph ‘Visual media in Indonesia: video vanguard’ and the edited volume ‘Digital Indonesia: connectivity and divergence’.
Michael Leigh was appointed Professor of Contemporary Asia and Director of the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne (2004-6) and was the director of the Aceh Research Training Institute (2007-9). He has served as the president of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. His previous positions include director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak 1997-2003, head of the Department of Government and Public Administration at the University of Sydney 1989-1991 and Director of the International College Penang 1992-6. He has published articles and monographs on elections in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Kate McGregor is a historian of Indonesia. Her research interests include Indonesian historiography, memories of violence, the Indonesian military, Islam and identity in Indonesia and historical international links between Indonesia and the world. She teaches in the areas of Southeast Asian history, the history of violence and Asian thematic history.
Dave McRae was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute. His current research interests include contemporary Indonesian politics, Indonesian foreign policy, Australia-Indonesia relations and regional security issues. He is a co-founder and editorial board member of the Indonesia@Melbourne blog, and founder and co-host of the Talking Indonesia podcast. Dave has researched conflict, politics, democratisation and human rights issues in Indonesia for well over a decade. He is currently an associate in the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society.
John Murphy teaches and researches Australian politics and history, and comparative social policy history, with a developing focus on Indonesian social protection. He has expertise in social policy, examined historically and comparatively. He has published research on Australian social, political and policy history, public narratives about welfare, masculinity and nation, and memory, historiography and biography.
Avery Poole’s research explores institutional change in regional organisations, particularly ASEAN; conceptualisations of democracy and governance in Australia and Southeast Asian states; and Australian engagement with Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region. Avery is an investigator in a research project regarding youth perception and diplomatic relations through education between Indonesia and Australia.
Thomas Reuter is a Professor at the Asia Institute of The University of Melbourne. After obtaining his PhD from ANU in 1997, he taught at Heidelberg University, held post-doctoral and QElI Fellowships at Melbourne, and a Research Fellowship at Monash University. He was President of the Australian Anthropological Association (2002-2005) and served as chair of the World Council of Anthropological Associations. He is currently Senior Vice-President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, a member of the advisory board of Future Earth (Asia) and on the executive of the International Social Science Council. His personal research has focused on Indonesian ethnology, new social movements, religion, political anthropology, elites, status, social organization, climate change, ecology, globalisation and general theory.
Andrew Rosser is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Melbourne. After completing undergraduate degrees in Commerce and Asian Studies at the University of Adelaide and Flinders University respectively, he enrolled in a PhD in Asian Studies/Politics and International Studies at Murdoch University. His early research focusing on analysing the politics of economic liberalisation in Indonesia during the New Order and early post-New Order periods and the causes and consequences of the 1997-1998 Asian economic crisis. More recently, his research has focused on the relationship between law, politics and social rights in Indonesia and the political economy of education and health reform.
Ken Setiawan is a Senior Lecturer and Convenor of the Indonesian Studies program. Her research, teaching and engagement interests are at the intersection of legal anthropology, history, politics and society in Asia, with an emphasis on Indonesia. In her research, she is interested in the promotion, manifestation and contestation of human rights at global, national and local levels, particularly with regard to coming to terms with past human rights violations.
Justin Wejak is a Lecturer at the Asia Institute and writes a number of papers and book chapters on anthropology, religion and violence in Indonesia.
Monika Winarnita Lectures in Indonesian Studies at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne and is an elected Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Her overarching research interest is to examine Australia-Indonesia relationship through gender, various cultural performances (digital, media, dance and ethnomusicology), mixed-race and minority identities, diasporic community belonging as well as care labour and precarious work from an anthropology of migration background. She has also done ethnographic fieldwork amongst the Cocos Keeling Muslim Malays in Australia’s Indian Ocean Territory and work on various projects on migrant communities in Australia and the Australian media. Monika holds a PhD in Anthropology (2014) from the Australian National University that was awarded an Honorable mention in the Raymond Firth thesis prize. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship (2015-2017) funded by the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council on the project ‘Southeast Asian Women, Family and Migration in the Global Era.’ During this Fellowship she received an award for the 2017 Monograph Book of Distinction (chosen out of 80 titles) for her published PhD thesis ‘Dancing the Feminine: Gender and Identity Performances by Indonesian Migrant Women’ at the University of Victoria, BC Canada.
FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND PLANNING
Amanda Achmadi obtained her doctorate degree in Architecture and Asian Studies at the University of Melbourne in 2007. She also holds a Bachelor degree in Architecture from Parahyangan University (Bandung, Indonesia). Her dissertation explores the role of architectural discourses within the 20th century construction of cultural identity in Bali. Amanda is interested in looking at the interactions between architecture and identity politics and how these unfold in different historical periods: pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial era. Her focus is the architectural landscape of Indonesia and Southeast Asian region.
David O’Brien practised as an architect before joining the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning in 1996. He is an expert in disaster relief, tsunami reconstruction housing and sustainable housing developments in marginalised communities in Asia. He publishes a number of articles and chapters on post-disaster reconstruction in Indonesia.
FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
Lisa Cameron joined the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne as a Professorial Research Fellow in July 2017. She is an empirical micro-economist whose research incorporates the techniques of experimental and behavioural economics so as to better understand human decision-making. Much of her research focuses on policy evaluation – understanding the impacts and behavioural implications of public policy, with a focus on social and economic issues. She is particularly interested in the welfare of disadvantaged and marginalised groups and the socio-economic determinants of health. Much of her research to date has focused on developing countries, particularly Indonesia and China. She is on the Editorial Board of the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (BIES).
Howard Dick holds an Honorary position in management and marketing at the University of Melbourne. His research’s interests are in Asian business, corruption, governance and ethics (Indonesia), global logistics and urbanisation in the Asia-Pacific.
Nisvan Erkal is a professor at the Department of Economics, University of Melbourne. Her research and teaching fields are in experimental economics, industrial organization, the economics of innovation, and microeconomics. She has researched issues such as corruption and corrupt behaviour in Indonesia and other Asia Pacific countries such as India, China and Australia.
Diana Contreras Suarez’s work focuses on understanding human capital formation throughout the life cycle using applied econometrics techniques. She works in various research projects in Indonesia pertaining to gender, children and social protection programs and evaluation.
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Lu Aye is a Professor in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is a member of the University of Melbourne Energy Institute Energy Efficiency and Smart Grids research groups.
Colin Duffield is a Professor of Engineering Project Management and Civil Engineering Discipline Leader in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering, at The University of Melbourne. He is also a Board member of Infrastructure Australia and a Fellow of the Law School (where he delivers a master level unit in infrastructure procurement). He is a recognised international thought leader in the efficient procurement of public infrastructure and the incorporation of private finance as a mechanism for achieving value for money outcomes.
Sherah Kurnia is an Associate Professor at the School of Computing and Information Systems, the University of Melbourne, Australia. She completed her PhD in inter-organizational information system adoption from Monash University, Australia. She is currently teaching Enterprise Systems, Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce and Enterprise Architecture Applications. Her research areas include electronic commerce, inter-organizational information systems, mobile commerce and social technologies, supply chain management, sustainability, strategic IT decision making and enterprise architecture. Dr. Kurnia has over 150 publications and have published in various journals including Information and Management, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Business Research, and International Journal of Supply Chain. She has won six Best Paper Awards from leading Information Systems conferences. She is currently an Associate Editor for Information and Management Journal.
Dr Bagus Nugroho is a Lecturer at the Dept of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, and part of the fluid mechanics research group. He is also one of the few ITC (Infrared Training Center) Level 2 Thermographer, and a member of the accredited Thermography professional training team at the University of Melbourne. Dr Nugroho’s research interest is in fundamental fluid mechanics (both in experiment and numerical simulation), particularly on high Reynolds number turbulent flows, flow controls, drag reduction mechanisms, and rough surface flows. He also looks into environmental flows such as at the effects of biofouling on marine engineering applications (large ships and submarine) and high efficient wind turbine. Dr Nugroho is also involved in several defence based applied research, such as Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle aerodynamics and morphing wings, submarine hydrodynamics, and helicopter landing pad aerodynamics on naval destroyer.
MELBOURNE LAW SCHOOL
Tim Lindsey is one of Australia’s leading experts on Indonesian law, and has advised governments, business, international organisations, courts and legal practitioners in Indonesia and Australia. He is Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the Melbourne Law School. He holds a Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Letters from the University of Melbourne and completed his PhD thesis in Indonesian studies. A specialist in a wide range of aspects of Indonesian law, including public law, criminal law, commercial law, and family law, he also teaches and researches shari’a (Islamic law) in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
Helen Pausacker is Deputy Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS) and an Executive Editor for the Australian Journal of Asian Law. She is a Principal Researcher with the Asian Law Centre and CILIS. She was Convenor of the Indonesia Forum (2001, 2009 to 2011). Helen has worked in a number of Indonesia-related positions, including as lecturer and tutor in History at the University of Melbourne (1995-1996) and Politics at Latrobe University (2000); as language facilitator and interpreter for a number of legal and non-government organisations; a research position with the Australian Council for Overseas Aid and as Office and Production Manager for the magazine, Inside Indonesia. Helen’s research interests in the legal field include charges of ‘pornography’ and prosecution of religious sects, both under the current Indonesian Criminal Code and she also researches in the field of Javanese culture.
FACULTY OF MEDICINE, DENTISTRY AND HEALTH SCIENCE
Peter Annear is Head of the Health Systems Governance and Financing Unit at the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne. He is a board member of the Asia Network for Health Systems Strengthening and a member of the Senior Technical Advisory Committee and the Board of the Asia Pacific Observatory for Health Systems and Policies. Assoc. Prof. Annear is a member of the Academic Board of the Development Studies department in the Master of Science degree at the University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Linda Rae Bennett is a medical anthropologist based at the Nossal Institute for Global Health, in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, sexuality and health among young people and women within Australia’s diverse migrant communities, and in the Asia and Pacific regions. Her key areas of expertise include: sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender based violence and theorising how intersectionality perpetuates multiple inequalities for different individuals and communities. She has an extensive research experience and publishes a large number of books and articles on these topics in Indonesian context.
Angela Devine is a health economist with the Menzies School of Health Research. Her current research is focused on the burden of disease and cost-effectiveness of options for the management of vivax malaria. She has published an article on the treatment of malaria in Papua, Indonesia in 2018.
Michael Duffy did his PhD in mycoplasma pneumoniae at the School of Veterinary Science at the University of Melbourne. This basic research identified a species-specific, immunodominant surface antigen that he developed into a serodiagnostic for atypical pneumonia currently produced under licence by a commercial company. He then undertook post-doctoral research into the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum for the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, but based at the Eijkman Institute in Jakarta Indonesia.
Krishna Hort has over 20 years’ experience in management and delivery of health services and in engaging with health system researchers and policy makers to address health system policy challenges in the Asia Pacific. He has been involved in programs ranging from maternal and child health, water and sanitation, hospital management, avoidable blindness, emerging infectious disease, through to reconstruction after natural disasters. Krishna also has more than 10 years’ experience working in health system support programs. These include roles as team leader of an AusAID program in Indonesia. Highlights include participating in the response to the Asian Tsunami of 2004 in Aceh, and leadership of the Health Policy and Finance Knowledge Hub 2009-2013. Krishna has contributed to national health system reviews in Indonesia and Bangladesh, and led research on policy issues such as public hospital governance, engaging and regulating the private sector and improving quality of care.
Barbara McPake is a health economist specialising in health policy and systems research. She has 30 years of experience in these areas based in four university departments. She is currently Director of the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne and one of two Research Directors of the ‘ReBUILD’, a UK Department for International Development funded Research Programme Consortium on health systems development.
Alex Robinson is the Unit Head – Disability Inclusion for Health and Development at Nossal Institute of Global Health and Population. He was previously Country Director for Indonesia and the Philippines and global Disability Inclusion Adviser for ASB, one of Germany’s largest social welfare organisations. Alex’s research concerns information, inclusion and risk. He has an interest in development programming and information access and content in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and prevention and has worked in emergency response and recovery programs in Indonesia, Haiti, the Philippines and Nepal.
Doreen Rosenthal is an Honorary Professor at Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. Her research’ interests are adolescent health and the health status of marginalized populations.
Muhammad Bayu Sasongko’s area of research is in diabetic retinopathy. He was awarded a PhD from University of Melbourne in 2012.
Susan Sawyer holds the inaugural Chair of Adolescent Health in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests within adolescent health include health services and models of care for adolescents and young adults, developmentally appropriate models of health care, and chronic disease management in adolescence. She has expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research methods. She is a leader of Australia-Indonesia Centre’s Health Research Cluster.
Belinda Spagnoletti has been with the Nossal Institute since 2013 and is currently a Research Fellow in Sexual and Reproductive Health. She manages a multi-site research project funded by the Australian Research Council that explores women’s experiences of cervical cancer in Indonesia. She has over 13 years of research and research management experience gained in interdisciplinary research teams in Australia and Indonesia.
Brigitte Tenni is the Senior Technical Advisor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health. She is a public health practitioner with a focus on, and expertise in, HIV programming, capacity building, social research and monitoring and evaluation. Her experience is in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, HIV and hepatitis C, drug policy, treatment preparedness, advocacy and the Greater Involvement of People living with HIV & AIDS (GIPA).
FACULTY OF SCIENCE
Barbara Ozarska is the Leader of the Research Group on Sustainable and Renewable Forest Products, with a focus on plantation wood processing and manufacturing, development and design of high quality timber products, durability of timber and timber products and utilisation of plantation timber resource. She is managing multimillion dollar collaborative research projects (in Australia, South-Eastern Asia, and countries in the Pacific) on value-added wood products based on plantation solid wood, veneers and wood composites; build capacity in education, research and training; and improve product quality and manufacturing practices.
Rebecca Runting is a Lecturer in Spatial Science with research interests that span spatial planning, ecosystem services, climate change adaptation and ecological economics. Her focus is on examining the economic and conservation value of different modelling and planning methods in complex environments, using case studies from Australia’s coastal wetlands and the tropical forests of Indonesian Borneo. Rebecca holds a PhD in Environmental Management (2017) from The University of Queensland, which focused on developing and evaluating strategies to manage ecosystem services under global change.
Sebastian Thomas is a transdisciplinary researcher with a background in climate strategy, environmental management, and sustainability economics and policy. His work examines human-nature relations – the interconnected biophysical, economic, social, and policy dynamics of sustainability innovations, climate governance, and environmental governance. In the context of global change issues – including technology, climate and environment, new economic forces, social movements and conflicts, and resource constraints – he investigates how communities can connect to global economic and policy frameworks to achieve resilient and prosperous sustainability outcomes. His research interests include the blue economy, vulnerability and resilience, ‘blue carbon’ in coastal ecosystems and its role in sustainable development, ocean governance, energy transitions, and the role of educational innovation in adapting to global challenges.
Ariane Utomo is a social demographer, working in the field of marriage and family in Indonesia. Her overarching research interest is to examine the relationship between family change and social change in contemporary Indonesia following the political reforms of 1998. Her research and teaching activities are centred on how social change are reflected in attitudes to gender roles, school to work transition, women’s employment, changing marriage patterns, and the nature of social stratification in Indonesia.
Jagoda Ignjatovic is an expert in veterinary biosciences. She specialises in veterinary virology and has conducted a number of research pertaining to the avian influenza virus i.e. H5N1 in Indonesia in recent years.