SEAREG Fellows

SEAREG Fellows are advanced PhD students or newly minted PhDs in the social sciences who display unusual promise as scholars of Southeast Asia. They are selected semi-annually via a competitive process.

The process begins by soliciting nominations for fellows (by faculty, students or self-nominations). All nominees submit their strongest unpublished paper, which is anonymized and read blindly by a committee of three faculty members. Each committee member independently ranks the papers, after which the committee meets to adjudicate their rankings and select the strongest papers.

Nominees should either be advanced PhD candidates expected to complete their degree within the year or recent graduates no more than 3 to 4 years post-PhD. Self-nominations are accepted (and encouraged).

Former Fellows now hold academic and professional positions around the world.

2024 Summer Fellows

Tommy Chai
PhD Candidate, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs

"Rethinking the Nature of China-Southeast Asia Relations and Order in the Early Modern Period: Beyond Hierarchy and Asymmetry"

Lili Chen
Lecturer and Researcher, Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosa'e

"Women as others in the local gaze: Malae nian in Timor-Leste"

Colum Graham
PhD Candidate, Australian National University

"From dissolution to preservation: the state and the persistence of Indonesian small-scale farming"

Tiên Dung Hà
PhD candidate, Stanford University

"From former foes to comprehensive strategic partners: Transnational scientific networks of identifying Vietnam’s MIAs remains"

Soksamphoas Im
Associate Director, Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University

"Band-Aid Policy: An Assessment of Cambodia’s Cash Transfer Program, Poverty, and Debt Among Rural Households"

Hipolitus Wangge
Researcher, Australian National University

"History of Local Civil Society in Papua: Running Through Modernity, Marginalisation, and Hostility"

2023 Winter Fellows

Songkhun Nillasithanukroh
Postdoctoral researcher, Open Governance Lab, University of Arkansas

"Turning Private Sector Resources into Political Power: Investigating the Utilization of Firm Resources for Electoral Purposes by Businessperson Politicians in Thailand"

Zhihang Ruan
Assistant Professor, Hunter College, City University of New York

"Land Regimes and the Welfare of Migrant Workers in China and Vietnam"

Megan Ryan
PhD Candidate, University of Michigan

"Privileged Nation: Buddhist Nationalism, Regime Change, and Anti-Minority Mobilization in Myanmar"

Mai Truong
Assistant Professor, Marquette University

"Who Wants to Work with Pro-democracy Advocates? The Effects of Movements’ Blame Attribution and Social Mass Base on Movement Coalition Formation in Authoritarian Regimes"

Nguyen Dinh Tuan Vuong
PhD candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"The Persistent Health Effects of Defoliating Vietnam"