Budi Kurniawan
Northern Illinois University
Political Science

Budi Kurniawan’s dissertation investigates a critical political paradox in Indonesia: why do regions rich in natural resources, such as coal and nickel, often experience lower levels of political competition? Drawing on the “resource curse” theory, which posits that resource abundance can undermine democratic institutions, Budi’s study seeks to uncover both the statistical relationship and the underlying mechanisms linking resource dependence to reduced political party competition at the subnational level. Budi’s research will extend the resource curse theory to the political domain, offering new insights into how natural resource wealth can incentivize elite collaboration and weaken democratic accountability at the local level. This project integrates quantitative and qualitative evidence to inform academic discourse and policy initiatives in Indonesia and other resource-rich countries.

Amirah Fadhlina
Boston University
Anthropology

Amirah’s research explores the intersections of identity, gender, new media, and religion in Indonesia. For her dissertation, she conducted 14 months of fieldwork in Yogyakarta. Her work centers an intergenerational network of gender nonconforming and queer individuals, examining how they navigate visibility, express gender, and subvert socioreligious norms. She is particularly interested in tracing how historical forms of gender fluidity in Indonesia interact with global queer practices. Combining ethnographic methods with archival and media analysis, her dissertation highlights the tensions and innovations surrounding gender diversity in contemporary Southeast Asia. Situated within broader conversations about Indonesian pluralism, her work sheds light on what is at stake for gender and sexual minorities in a rapidly changing world. Through collaborations with grassroots archival initiatives, her dissertation also contributes to documenting local queer histories and narratives. As such, her research serves as a resource for scholarly, activist, and cultural work on gender diversity in Muslim-majority societies.​

Julian Fritz Chaesar Pratama Salim
University of Washington
Global Health - Implementation Science 

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of Indonesia’s leading infectious disease killers, with many cases going undetected — especially in rural, under-resourced regions. Julian's fieldwork project evaluates the national strategy of Active Household Contact Investigation for TB (AHCI-TB), a critical intervention for early TB detection and prevention. Julian employs a hybrid implementation-effectiveness design, integrating semi-structured interviews, implementation outcome assessments, and configuration analysis to examine how contextual factors shape AHCI-TB delivery — the study amplifies the voices of frontline healthcare workers and patients to uncover individual, organizational, and systemic barriers and facilitators affecting program fidelity, reach, and sustainability.

Findings from this project will inform evidence-based adaptations to strengthen TB contact investigation efforts nationally. Beyond generating new knowledge, his work lays the groundwork for an Indonesia’s regional TB research institute by building local research capacity, fostering cross-sector collaboration, and promoting meaningful community engagement. By illuminating the why behind suboptimal implementation, Julian's research goes beyond surface-level metrics and dives into the mechanisms that make — or break — program success to advance health equity, strengthen local systems, and help to save countless lives across Indonesia.

Moch Nurfahrul Lukmanul
Philosophy and History of Education
​The Ohio State University

This study examines the Challenges and Opportunities of Public Museums in Indonesia for culturally sustaining pedagogy and its transformation for lifelong learning. This research will investigate museum educational policies and conduct observations to gather more comprehensive information about recent challenges among Indonesian museum educators. This study will employ the Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) framework to discover opportunities for museum educators to promote lifelong learning. This approach also redefines museum education in Indonesia historically and philosophically. This study aims to comprehensively investigate how disruptions affect museums as part of formal and non-formal learning resources, and how museum educators transform a meaningful learning environment for their diverse audiences.

Fahmi Rizki Fahroji
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Science and Technology Studies

​Fahmi’s research explores how oil extraction in Indonesia has been made technically feasible, socially acceptable, and politically rational. In this project, he takes the opportunity to conduct expert interviews and fieldwork across key sites, including along the eastern coast of Kalimantan as well as East Java and Jakarta, where he follows the practices of geoscientists, engineers, artisanal miners and bureaucrats as they transform uncertain underground oil into extractable and profitable resources. It also examines how local communities—both onshore and near offshore platforms—have been shaped by, and have in turn shaped, discourses of development and infrastructural promises to accommodate extraction. Oil, Fahmi argues, is not only an underground commodity but also a contested symbol of modernity and sovereignty. This ethnographic project seeks to understand the frictions and translations that emerge when technoscientific enactments meet local contexts. It attends to how global oil discourses are reinterpreted at the ground level, interacting with situated forms of non-scientific agencies that shape, negotiate, and at times resist dominant epistemologies of oil extraction. Through this sociotechnical perspective, the project contributes to broader understandings of the extractive infrastructures, epistemic asymmetries, as well as sociopolitical and technoscientific arrangements that co-produce Indonesia’s oil frontiers.”

Sarah Riadi
Pennsylvania State University
Geography

Sarah's dissertation aims to quantify the interaction between fire dynamics and land conversion, primarily in Indonesia's peatland and rainforest area. The impacts of deforestation caused by fire disrupts ecological balance, and further damaging human environment. This study seeks to understand the fire behavior between different land use by tracking fire movement using remote sensing and machine learning. By doing a field work, Sarah will gain insights of fire remnants  in the forest landscape and generate validation data for enhancing the machine learning accuracy. This research findings will assist future policy makers to prevent fire disaster and improve land use management.

​Ayu Rahmawati
University of Florida
Political Science
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​Mainstream theories of democracy suggest that an active civil society is crucial for a successful transition to democracy and its long-term stability. However, democratic backsliding has occurred even in countries where democratization was an outcome of civil society-led movements, such as Indonesia and the Philippines. Ayu’s dissertation research employs a comparative historical analysis of civil society organizations in these two crucial Southeast Asian countries to understand the conditions preventing civil society from effectively defending democracy when the system is under threat.

Dewi A. Qisti
University of Wisconsin-Madison
​Rehabilitation Psychology & Special Education

Dewi's dissertation investigates the campus climate perceptions and their impact on flourishing among college students with disabilities in the United States and Indonesia. Her research employs Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to identify distinct subgroups of students based on their experiences of inclusivity, accessibility, and support services within higher education institutions. The study further explores how membership in these latent profiles correlates with self-advocacy and resilience, ultimately influencing their levels of flourishing. By conducting a comparative analysis between the two countries, Dewi aims to highlight disparities and best practices in disability services, contributing to more inclusive policies and enhanced campus environments. Her research seeks to inform both institutional practices and policy development to improve accessibility and well-being for students with disabilities across diverse educational contexts.

Dini Hajarrahmah
Hospitality and Tourism Management, Pamplin College of Business
Virgina Tech
Dini’s dissertation investigates how regenerative tourism can be advanced as a collaborative, transformational approach that creates net-positive impacts for ecosystems, communities, and local economies in tourism destinations. Moving beyond sustainability, regenerative tourism emphasizes restoring and enhancing the well-being of the destination and its people. Her three-article dissertation examines the roles of tourism social entrepreneurs, local communities, DMOs (Destination Management Organizations), and tourists in advancing regenerative tourism. Building on her first published study in Annals of Tourism Research, which examined the role of systems thinking and feedback loops in social entrepreneurial efforts for regenerative tourism, the second phase focuses on how different message framings influence tourists’ willingness to engage in regenerative behaviors. The third and current phase investigates regenerative agritourism innovation and experiences by exploring the co-creation process involving multiple stakeholders. Using Diffusion of Innovation and Value Co-creation theory, this study will include fieldwork in Indonesia, combining field visits to regenerative farms and interviews to understand how regenerative tourism can be viewed not merely as an innovation to be adopted by tourists, but as a collaborative process involving shared meaning-making and active participation. The findings will inform inclusive, community-driven tourism strategies that support ecological resilience, cultural revitalization, and long-term stewardship in Indonesia and beyond.

Saiful Bakhri
UCLA
Conservation of Material Culture

Located at the intersection of cultural anthropology, archives, education, and cultural heritage conservation, my research provides insight into how traditional conservation is being transmitted intergenerationally, how modern Western scientific conservation is introduced, and how both reflect and influence Indonesia's current formal education of cultural heritage conservation and shape its future. Taking the care of Keris as a case study, my research involves ethnographic fieldwork with Keris’ stakeholders, such as empu and penjamas in Yogyakarta and Central Java, to investigate how the knowledge and skills associated with the traditional conservation of Keris are transmitted over many generations. On the other hand, the research examines the introduction and influence of Western scientific conservation on Indonesian cultural heritage conservation practices through archival research at the Borobudur Conservation Archive, Magelang, Central Java. By researching these two views, I argue that Indonesian traditional conservation and Western scientific conservation can be combined in a formal educational system. I plan to research two recently established undergraduate programs - Art Conservation at ISI Yogyakarta (established 2022) and Keris Traditional Weapon at ISI Surakarta (established 2012) - to see how the combination may have already existed. Ultimately, my research will contribute to shaping the future direction of culturally grounded conservation education in Indonesia and contribute to global dialogues on integrating diverse knowledge systems within the conservation discipline.
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Abdul Ilham
Public Policy/Energy Policy
Oregon State University

Ilman’s dissertation research qualitatively examines how growing up in energy poverty—specifically with limited or unreliable electricity—shapes individuals’ long-term educational and economic trajectories. Centered on case studies in Madura and Sumbawa, regions historically affected by inadequate electricity access, the research employs semi-structured interviews to capture the lived experiences, coping strategies, and aspirations of individuals who experienced energy deprivation during childhood. Grounded in the frameworks of Rawl's justice concept, Sen’s capability approach, and Nussbaum’s human development theory, the study also integrates the concept of energy ethics to explore how cultural values and local norms influence perceptions of energy and responses to scarcity. Through these narratives, the dissertation aims to inform more inclusive and culturally sensitive energy policies that go beyond technical access to address the deeper social and developmental dimensions of energy poverty.​