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.

 

WANG XUN

Year of Intake: 2022
Email: wang_xun@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Assoc Prof Vatthana Pholsena

---

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 advisor.

 

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 examines the social history of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in Aceh, Indonesia.

 

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.

 

ANGGA YUDHIYANSYAH

Year of Intake: 2025
Email: angga.y@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Dr Lin Hongxuan

---

Angga's research examines changing class relations in Indonesia’s palm oil sector by analysing how a particular conjuncture of the transmigration programme and the Oil Palm Nucleus Estate Scheme in Sumatra gave rise to rural cooperatives as central institutions of class formation. 

 

YEW YING HAN

Year of Intake: 2025
Email: e1547383@u.nus.edu
Thesis Advisor: Assoc Prof Irving Chan Johnson

---

Yew Ying Han currently focuses on research investigating how plants often dismissed as weeds, particularly lalang (Imperata cylindrica), shape human-environment relations in Southeast Asia. His work examines the intersections of crop cultivation, plantation economies, infrastructure, and indigenous communities with state-making and socio-political change.