Graduate Students

PhD Students

FADIAH NADWA BINTI FIKRI

Year of Intake: 2020
Email: fadiahnadwa@u.nus.edu 
Thesis Advisor: Dr Lin Hongxuan


Fadiah's dissertation examines the construction of Malayness under the Melayu citizenship provision of the 1947 People’s Constitutional Proposals for Malaya (1947 People’s Constitution), drafted by the PUTERA-AMCJA coalition, Malaya's first left-wing, multi-ethnic united front.

 

DK SITI ZULAIKHA PG HJ ISHAK

Year of Intake: 2021
Email: zulaikha.ishak@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Dr Faizah Zakaria


Zulaikha’s research investigates how a coastal village in Brunei sustains its belacan-making tradition through seasonal pulses shaped by unpredictability – when wind, shrimp, and memory momentarily align. In these brief openings, the community regathers around shared memory, labour, and place – countering official heritage scripts in what she frames as Pulse Heritage.

 

HIOE ZHI HUI JOANNA

Year of Intake: 2021
Email: joannahioe@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisors: Assoc Prof Vatthana Pholsena & Dr Serina Rahman


Joanna's research focuses on the cumulative impact of slow violence and natural disasters on low-income coastal communities in the Philippines.

 

KYI KYI SEINN

Year of Intake: 2021
Email: kyikyiseinn@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisors: Assoc Prof Vatthana Pholsena & Assoc Prof Maitrii Aung-Thwin


Kyi Kyi's dissertation explores how a series of contemporary crises in Myanmar, often framed through the notion of Ayedawbon (revolution), should not be understood as a single, unified national uprising. She argues that the 2021 Ayedawbon emerges as a fluid and contested collection of discourses and practices – produced and performed by different actors through both strategic and ad hoc responses, in pursuit of divergent aims and worldviews.

 

WANG XUN

Year of Intake: 2022
Email: wang_xun@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisors: Assoc Prof Vatthana Pholsena & Dr Faizah Zakaria


Wang Xun is interested in how technology and industrial development have shaped society and the environment in post-1945 Vietnam. Her thesis examines the Thái Nguyên Steelworks to explore the everyday experiences of workers and the broader social and ecological impacts of industrial development. Her research began and developed under the mentorship of Assoc Prof Gerard Sasges and is now carried forward under the guidance of her current advisors.

 

SHARMINI APHRODITE

Year of Intake: 2024
Email: sharmini.aphrodite@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Dr Faizah Zakaria


Sharmini's research project considers how elements of Kadazan-Dusun identity have historically developed and functioned as forms of resistance against Malaysian state hegemony.

 

MUHAMMAD MIRZA ARDI

Year of Intake: 2024
Email: mirzaardi@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Dr Faizah Zakaria


Mirza's research investigates how Muslim technocrats in Aceh, constrained by limited knowledge, resources, and political agency, navigated competing policy trade-offs in implementing the Green Revolution. At the same time, local elites, religious leaders, and communities produced alternative knowledges that challenged the dominant technocratic model through counter-narratives grounded in local beliefs and experiences.

 

RIZKI AMALIA AFFIAT

Year of Intake: 2024
Email: rizkiaffiat@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Assoc Prof Douglas Kammen


Rizki's research explores how women’s circular migration between rural and urban areas in Indonesia intertwines with capitalist development and agrarian change, as their labour – both paid and unpaid – helps sustain families, communities, and class structures. The case study is Lebak, in Banten Province.

 

MA Students

GRACE NASTASYA

Year of Intake: 2023
Email: e1154508@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Dr Serina Rahman


Grace’s dissertation examines the experiences of Red Dao ethnic minority women in the context of community-based tourism in Sapa, North Vietnam. It provides rich insights into the local understandings of women’s empowerment and agency.

 

SARALN NG UDOMKICHDECHA

Year of Intake: 2023
Email: e1149476@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Assoc Prof Irving Chan Johnson


Saraln's ethnographic study looks at how the borderland islanders of Ko Yao in Satun, southern Thailand, navigate between the state-imposed borders and their maritime way of life. 

 

WONG YONG EN

Year of Intake: 2023
Email: wong.yong.en@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Assoc Prof Hamzah Muzaini


Yong En's project considers intercultural music-making as responses to Singaporean state ideology of multiculturalism as organisation of racial difference. This includes audience reception of this music, and potential challenges the musicians face.

 

CHU HAO PEI

Year of Intake: 2024
Email: e1374315@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Dr Lin Hongxuan


Hao Pei's research analyses how rice is visually mobilised through three key sites: politicians’ public engagements with rice, rice packaging designs, and representations in rice museums.

 

DANIEL ANDARA KALANGIE

Year of Intake: 2024
Email: dakalangie@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Assoc Prof Douglas Kammen


Daniel's research looks at the gap between official ethnic category used in the Indonesian census and how people identify themselves. Using data from the 2000 and 2010 censuses, he shows how political changes and migration have shaped the way ethnic identities are recorded in North Maluku province, Indonesia.