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Fellows and Scholars

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Luthfi Adam

Luthfi Adam

PhD-2020; 2021-22 EDGS Research Fellow

Dr. Luthfi Adam graduated from the Department of History at Northwestern in 2020. He was awarded "Distinction" upon defense of his dissertation, "Cultivating Power: Buitenzorg Botanic Garden and Empire-Building in the Netherlands East Indies, 1745-1917." He also won the 2020 Harold Perkin Prize for the Best Dissertation in the Department of History at Northwestern. As a 2013 Arryman Fellow, Luthfi pursued a comparative study of the rise of native journalism and nationalism movements in post colonial countries. He graduated with a BA in Journalism at Padjadjaran University in 2007 and continued on with a master’s degree in cultural and media studies at Gadjah Mada University where he graduated cum laude in 2011 and then became a lecturer in Padjadjaran University.

Sofyan Ansori

Sofyan Ansori

Sofyan Ansori earned his bachelor’s degree in social anthropology at the University of Indonesia in 2009 with the highest GPA in his class. He was awarded a “Future Leadership Scholarship” from PPM School of Management in 2012 for his master’s degree. Since completing his studies, he has worked as an associate researcher and lecturer at the University of Indonesia. An experienced ethnographer, Sofyan will join Northwestern’s anthropology department where he is going to perform research on the sources of Central Kalimantan’s peatland fires.

Muhammad Fajar

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

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

Norman Joshua is a history graduate student at Northwestern. Norman graduated from the University of Indonesia’s history department in 2014. Since graduating, Norman has worked as a writer and researcher at Majalah Loka, an online publication primarily concerned with historical, socio-political and cultural issues in Indonesia. During his Arryman Fellow year his research focused on the combination of the Indonesian gas and oil industry, bureaucratic incompetence, corrupt practices, overexpansion and the state of the global financial market during the 1970s oil boom.

Yoes Chandra Kenawas

Yoes Chandra Kenawas

Yoes Chandra Kenawas is a political science graduate student at NorthwesternAs 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

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

Gde Metera

PhD-2021; 2021-22 EDGS Research Fellow

Dr. Gde Metera graduated from the Department of Political Science at Northwestern in 2021. His dissertation is entitled Coercion in Search of Legitimacy: The Secular State, Religious Politics, and Religious Coercion in Indonesia under the New Order, 1967-1998. Gde conducts research on the logic underpinning state policies on religion and its consequences on secularism, democracy, and religious liberty. Starting in August 2021, he is a guest lecturer at the American Studies program, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. Previously, in 2019-2020, he was a non-resident young scholar fellow on religion and the rule of law at the International Center for Law and Religious Studies (ICLRS), Brigham Young University. Gde received his BA in English Literature from Universitas Gadjah Mada, and his MA in Political Science from Northwestern University.
Bahram Naderil

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

Mirna Nadia

Mirna Nadia is a sociology graduate student at Northwestern. Her research is focused on sexual reproductive health and rights and the state’s efforts to regulate sexuality particularly among women and adolescents. She obtained her bachelor degree from the School of Life Sciences and Technology, Bandung Institute of Technology, and was part of the Physiology, Animal Development, and Biomedical Sciences group. She continued her study in international health at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University with a scholarship award from the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education from 2014-2016.

Aulia Dwi Nastiti

Aulia Dwi Nastiti

Aulia Dwi Nastiti intends to pursue her doctorate at Northwestern in the political science department. She did her bachelor’s degree in the Department of Communication at the University of Indonesia, where she is currently a researcher and junior lecturer in media studies. She completed her master’s degree at the Universite Jean Mouli Lyon 3 with her thesis entitled, “Culture and Cultural Policy in a Globalized Context: The Case of Indonesia.” During her fellow year she focused her research on how new “digital middleman” technologies, such as Uber, are changing the political economy of commodification, labor and power across a range of societies.

Sabina Satriyani Puspita

Sabina Satriyani Puspita

Sabina Satriyani Puspita is a political science graduate student at Northwestern. As a 2014 Arryman Fellow, Sabina studied comparative politics, focusing on China, Indonesia and the Philippines. Sabina graduated from Ursuline Wenzao College of Languages, Kaoshiung, Taiwan, with a BA in translation. She graduated with an honor of academic performance. She worked as in-house translator/interpreter to the Public Affairs Division, Taipei Economic and Trade Office in Jakarta. She also freelanced as a translator/interpreter from Mandarin to Bahasa Indonesia and English.

Febi Rizki Ramadhan

Febi Rizki Ramadhan

Febi Rizki Ramadhan is an anthropology graduate student at Northwestern. As a 2018 Arryman Fellow, he conducted ethnographic research on the performativity of violence towards several minority groups in Indonesia.Febi obtained his bachelor degree from Department of Anthropology, University of Indonesia. Febi has worked as a researcher at various research centers, including the Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Indonesia. His research interests include gender and sexuality, political-economy and morality.

Sari Damar Ratri

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

Muhammad Ridha earned his bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Indonesia. His thesis was, “Hegemonic Contestation of Batang’s Peasant Movement.” Supported by an Australian Development Scholarship, he received his master’s from Murdoch University with a thesis entitled, “The Development of a Universal Social Security System in Indonesia.” He once worked at Pusat Kajian Politik (Puskapol) Universitas Indonesia as researcher prior his to master’s and became an independent consultant and researcher for several non-governmental organizations in Indonesia. He plans to study in the political science department at Northwestern, where he will deepen his research on the political economy of welfare programs.

Perdana Roswaldy

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

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 IndonesiaIndoProgress, and Inside Indonesia. Her latest essay about women war victims during Japanese colonialism in Indonesia won the 2nd prize in ISRSF Women Essay Competition.

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

Eunike Setiadarma

Eunike Setiadarma

Eunike G. Setiadarma (Nike) is a history graduate student at Northwestern. She graduated from Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung with a BA in international relations. She completed her master of science in international development at the University of Manchester, UK with a scholarship award from the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP). Previously she worked as researcher and in 2017, was awarded a research fellowship by the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), South-Korea. Nike wants to study the course of development idea and scientific institutions in Indonesia after World War II. 

Atmaezer Hariara Simanjuntak

Atmaezer Hariara Simanjuntak

Atmaezer Hariara Simanjuntak (Ara) is an Anthropology graduate student at Northwestern. He graduated cum laude from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, with a BA in Anthropology. Since graduating, he has worked as a researcher for private and public sectors in Indonesia, with a specialization in socio-economic and development issues. His current research project looks at the legacies of colonial plantations in the global south, especially how plantation economies' financialization and moralization organize environments, bodies, and social relations. Always trying to think from and with the plantation landscape, he also writes about multispecies relations, hope, and emerging forms of resistance among indigenous laborers in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Kadek Wara Urwasi

Kadek Wara Urwasi

Kadek Wara Urwasi is a sociology graduate student at Northwestern. As a 2014 Arryman Fellow, Wara studied urban sociology, focusing on conflicts in cities and the role of urban policies and planning. She graduated from the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Udayana University, Denpasar. She obtained her master of architecture in urban design (first class with distinction), School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India. Wara is also an award-winning writer and a poet. She is a recipient of Asian Public Intellectual (API) Fellowship from the Nippon Foundation in 2012 – 2013 to conduct a research on the cultural landscape of urban design in Japan and Malaysian cities.

Rahardhika Arista Utama

Rahardhika Arista Utama

Rahardhika Utama is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Northwestern University. As an Arryman Scholar, Rahardhika’s research focuses on the variation of development among agrarian economies in the Global South. He examines historical factors that transform and sustain agrarian society by tracing domestic and international forces from colonial to contemporary periods that affect paths of economic development. For his dissertation project, Embedded Peasantry and Economic Transformation in the Asian Rubber Belt, he employs the case of natural rubber plantation and manufacturing industries to examine the bifurcation of development among historically prominent rubber producing countries in Asia. He utilizes a comparative historical framework to analyze evidence collected through extensive archival research at 20 libraries and archive centers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom. He also gathered oral history, interviews, and observations from multi-sited ethnography fieldwork in multiple rubber communities in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Myanmar. Rahardhika’s research paper, Embedded Peasantry: Path-Dependence and Economic Transformation in Indonesia and Malaysia, won an Honorable Mention for the Outstanding Graduate Student Article Award by the Sociology of Development Section, American Sociological Association In 2020. 

Website: www.rahardhika.com