Fellows and Scholars

Luthfi Adam

PhD-2020; 2021-22 EDGS Research Fellow

Luthfi Adam is a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Research at Monash University Indonesia, and a former fellow in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University. From 2020 to 2022, he was a visiting researcher at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs. His first book, Cultivating Power: Botany, Agriculture, and Colonial Expansion in the Netherlands East Indies, 1745-1941 (under contract with Cornell University Press) examines the pivotal role of botanic gardens in the expansion of colonial plantations and environmental governance in Indonesia. The manuscript is based on his dissertation, which received the Harold Perkins Prize for the best dissertation submitted to Northwestern University’s Department of History in 2020. Luthfi is currently working on a new research project on the environmental history of Greater Jakarta, tentatively titled "The Sinking Capital City." This project integrates environmental history, the history of technology, public health, and urban history. At Monash Indonesia, Luthfi also teaches in the Master of Public Policy and Management program, offering courses such as Cultural Policy and its Challenges in Contemporary Indonesia and Designing Research, which prepares Master’s students to develop their thesis proposals.

Sofyan Ansori

Sofyan Ansori is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University. His research project examines relationships between humans and fires in light of the current climate crisis. Since 2015, his ethnographic work engages specifically with how Indigenous communities in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, navigate their thoughts and actions amid the recurring massive fires and state’s ongoing desire to enforce anti-fire policies. His dissertation seeks to understand how Indigenous people orient themselves between repeated external efforts to transform their lives and disastrous annual fires within their environment, attuning to the dynamics of engagement and apathy, care and negligence, as well as commitment and resentment in the everyday life of fire governance. He is also PI-ing a pilot project, “Fire Play: Understanding and Documenting Indigenous Fire Governance in Indonesia,” trying to inform policy and gaining recognition for Indigenous struggle and environmental labor through public-facing works such as op-eds and policy papers as well as multimodal productions including ethnographic film, short animation, and graphic novel. For more, please visit sofyanansori.com.

Muhammad Fajar

PhD-2020; 2021-22 EDGS Research Fellow

Dr. Muhammad Fajar graduated from the Department of Political Science at Northwestern in 2020. He successfully defended his dissertation, "The Path to Preemption: The Politics of the Indonesian Student Movements during the Regime Transition, 1998-1999." As a 2013 Arryman Fellow, Muhammad researched democracy promotion policies in Indonesia supported by international agencies. He received his BA in sociology from University of Indonesia (UI). In 2011, he received the Netherlands Fellowship Program (NFP) scholarship for his master’s degree at the Institute of Social Studies, in the Hague, specializing in governance and democracy (G&D).

Sindhunata Hargyono

Sindhunata Hargyono is an anthropology graduate student at Northwestern. Sindhu graduated cum laude from the University of Indonesia’s department of Anthropology in 2013. Sindhu’s interests include digital photography and film, open source mapping and digital illustration. During his Arryman Fellow year his research focused on Indonesia’s Buru Island and how the Indonesian New Order materialized its totalitarian ambition through rendering untried political prisoners superfluous in Buru.

Norman Joshua

Norman Joshua is currently a Hoover Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He graduated from the Department of History at Northwestern in 2023. His scholarship centers on the histories of authoritarianism and civil-military relations in Southeast and East Asia, focusing on the relationship between historical experiences and consolidation of authoritarian governance. Before joining Hoover, he was the Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University.

His dissertation and book manuscript, Fashioning Authoritarianism: Militarization in Indonesia, 1930-1965, examines how military intervention in non-military affairs was shaped not only by specific policies—such as the deployment of emergency powers and counterinsurgency strategies—but also by broader social insecurities. His research explores the ways in which history shapes the legitimacy and durability of authoritarian regimes. In 2022, he was awarded the HFG Emerging Scholar award by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

His broader research interests include revolutionary politics, counterinsurgency, intelligence history, labor history, and political economy. His first monograph, Pesindo: Pemuda Sosialis Indonesia (2015), investigates the politics of armed youth groups during the Indonesian Revolution. His recent works can be found in the Journal of Advanced Military Studies, Jurnal Sejarah, and The Jakarta Post. He also enjoys photography and scuba diving, where he is a certified rescue diver.

Yoes Chandra Kenawas

Yoes Chandra Kenawas is a political science graduate student at Northwestern. As a 2014 Arryman Fellow, Yoes studied comparative politics, focusing on the rise of political dynasty and oligarchy at the local level in the post-New Order Indonesia. Yoes graduated from Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, with a BA in international relations. He completed a MA in Asian studies at S. Rajaratman School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was also a visiting lecturer at Parahyangan Catholic University and served as a research associate at the Centre for Innovation, Policy and Governance.

Robie Kholilurrahman

Robie Kholilurrahman completed his bachelor’s degree in international relations at the University of Indonesia in 2016 with a thesis titled, “State and Mobile Investors Relation on Industrialization in Post New Order Indonesia (1998-2014).” Since graduating, he has worked as a researcher at the Research Institute for Crisis and Alternative Development Strategies (INKRISPENA), and as a research associate at the Directorate for Foreign Politics and International Development Cooperation at the Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS). At Northwestern, Robie will join the Department of Political Science where he will conduct research on the topic of political economy of industrialization.

Gde Metera

PhD-2021; 2021-22 EDGS Research Fellow

Bahram Naderil

Bahram Naderil intends to pursue his doctorate at Northwestern in the Department of Anthropology. He completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Jember, writing a thesis focused on women’s rights in the United States and the 2013 repeal of the Pentagon’s combat exclusion policy. He has received honors of being named the “National Best Speaker” in the 2013 National University Debating Championship. During his Fellow year his research focused on women’s struggles against male domination in Indonesian Islam and Christianity.

Mirna Nadia

Aulia Dwi Nastiti

Sabina Satriyani Puspita

Sabina Satriyani Puspita, PhD is Deputy Director of the Monash Herb Feith Indonesian Engagement Centre and Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Management at Monash University, Indonesia. She started her PhD journey at Northwestern University's Department of Political Science as an Arryman Fellow in 2014, then as an Arryman Scholar in 2015, and graduated in June 2023. Her research interests include gender politics, democratization, and sustainable communities in Northeast and Southeast Asia. Currently, she is conducting a few collaborative and interdisciplinary research projects on the health and economic wellbeing of domestic care workers and transit refugee women in Greater Jakarta Area and vulnerable communities' climate resilience in East Indonesia, among others. 

Febi Rizki Ramadhan

Febi R. Ramadhan is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University. At Northwestern, he has obtained graduate certificates in Gender and Sexuality Studies and Global Politics and Religion. His scholarly orientations include: (1) understanding how people utilize, craft, (re)produce, dismiss, remake, and engage with religion, science, and law in their attempts to make sense of heteronormativity; (2) understanding the many ways in which sex, gender, and sexuality—in the broadest sense—is regulated, surveilled, punished, criminalized, and governed in various means; and (3) understanding how knowledge (e.g., religious, scientific, legal) on human sexualities and gender identities are embedded in transnational and multiscalar contexts, routes, and relations.

Currently, Febi is working on his dissertation, “An Impossible World: A Social Life of Heteronormativity in Indonesia,” which ethnographically and historically examines the production of religious knowledge on same-sex sexualities and Islam in Indonesia, especially in relation to the politics of gender and sexuality in Indonesia, a global history of the ex-gay movements and conversion therapy organizations, transnational networks of Salafi economy, and contemporary anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ+ movements worldwide. His dissertation research has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Southeast Asia Research Group, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sexualities Project at Northwestern, and Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Studies.

Febi’s works have been published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Jurnal Antropologi Indonesia, Remotivi, and Otherwise Magazine. For his research papers, Febi has been awarded Kenneth W. Payne Prize from the Association for Queer Anthropology (2023), Graduate Student Paper Prize by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion (2021), and Sara Berry Award from Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship Program at Johns Hopkins University (2019). Aside from his dissertation research, Febi currently also works on his collaborative research projects on the pathologization of transgender identity in Indonesia, health information-seeking behaviors among people with HIV in Indonesia, and conversion therapy practices in Indonesia and Insular Southeast Asia.

Sari Damar Ratri

Sari Damar Ratri intends to pursue her doctorate at Northwestern in the Department of Anthropology. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Indonesia and her master’s degree in medical anthropology and sociology at the University of Amsterdam. Sari was the 1st prize winner of ISRSF’s national women’s essay competition in 2014. Currently she is an associate researcher at the University of Indonesia’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Muhammad Ridha

Muhammad Ridha is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University, specializing in political economy, social movements, oligarchy, welfare politics, and class politics. He holds a Master's in Development Studies from Murdoch University, Australia (2015), and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of Indonesia (2008).

Ridha's dissertation, titled "Non-Oligarchic Force: The Effectiveness of the Workers' Movement under Oligarchy in Indonesia," examines the dynamics of labor movements in the context of oligarchic political structures in Indonesia.His work has been published in  academic journals and edited volumes, including Politik Indonesia: Indonesian Political Science Review and Urban Revolt: State Power and the Rise of People’s Movements in the Global South. His recent studies explore the role of labor parties and class politics in Indonesia, contributing to broader discussions of the labor movement at the global level.

Ridha has significant teaching experience, having served as a lecturer and teaching assistant at institutions such as Northwestern University, Universitas Indonesia, and Universitas Podomoro. He is also an editorial member of Jurnal Indoprogress and a special staff member at the Indonesian Labour Party (Partai Buruh), where he is involved in ideological development and cadre training.

Through his academic and professional endeavors, Ridha is committed to analyzing and addressing the power structures that shape political economies, particularly in the Global South.

Perdana Roswaldy

Perdana (Pepe) Roswaldy is a sociology graduate student at Northwestern University. After four years of studying the Russian language and Soviet art politics, she took an unexpected detour to land conflicts and plantation economics in Southeast Asia. She received a Kellogg-DRRC grant for her thesis on land conflict and gendered climatic shock in 2019. Her current project is the afterlives of colonial plantations across postcolonial countries.

Amrina Rosyada

Amrina Rosyada graduated cum laude from Cultural Anthropology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia in 2019. At Northwestern, Amrina is a part of the Department of Anthropology. Her research interest concerns the history of Indonesian anthropology, as well as misinformation and “uncanny stories” circulating during the pandemic time among urban Indonesians.

She has also written several essays that have won national prizes and have been published in national and international online media alike, namely The Conversation Indonesia, IndoProgress, and Inside Indonesia. Her latest essay about women war victims during Japanese colonialism in Indonesia won the 2^nd prize in ISRSF Women Essay Competition.

She co-founded and manages a book review blog, The Suryakanta.

Eunike Setiadarma

Atmaezer Hariara Simanjuntak

Atmaezer Hariara Simanjuntak (Ara) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University. Before his Ph.D. training, Ara worked for multiple private sectors in Indonesia and a multilateral development bank, specializing in economic development and social equity. He graduated cum laude from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia, with a BA in Anthropology.

Ara’s current dissertation project, “Replanting the Future: State Speculation and the Persistence of Debt in Indonesia’s Plantation Economy,” ethnographically and historically examines the intersection of finance, everyday palm oil plantation life (corporate and smallholder), and expectations of spectacular economic growth in the context of Indonesia’s rising debt levels, climate crisis and energy transition efforts, and green market development. His dissertation research is funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, The Earle Research Grant, The Society for Anthropology of Work (AAA), and Northwestern University’s The Graduate School.

In 2024, Ara taught graduate-level courses at Monash University Indonesia and Universitas Gadjah Mada, exploring various aspects of finance-driven institutional changes in relation to global sustainable/green development efforts and their socio-economic implications. Driven by a passion for interdisciplinary research and problem-solving approaches, Ara’s broader interest includes the politics of finance and development, fintechs and data economy, political ecology, comparative politics, state–corporate relations, and citizenship. Aside from doing research, Ara enjoys travel and photography, where his work has been published in multiple exhibitions.

Kadek Wara Urwasi

Dr. Kadek Wara Urwasi is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Research (IFAR) at Monash University, Indonesia. She completed her PhD in Sociology at Northwestern University in 2024. Wara’s research interests include urban sociology, urban politics, and inequality and informality. Her dissertation, “Interests, Power, and Ideas: The Politics of Urban Informality Governance in Jakarta, 1945-2022,” examines the factors behind the inconsistent governmental responses to urban informal settlements in Jakarta across regimes. It focuses on the influence of local leaders’ interests, community power, and the politics of ideas. Wara received the Buffett Institute’s Global Impacts Graduate Fellowships in 2021 and has been awarded the Maurice J. and Fay B. Karpf Peace Prize and the Robert F. Winch Memorial Award from the Sociology Department.

Rahardhika Arista Utama