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 All nominees submit their strongest unpublished paper, which is anonymized and read blindly by a committee of three faculty members.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.

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

call for 2025 Summer Fellows Nominations

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).

Fellows chosen in this round will be invited to present their unpublished work at the summer SEAREG conference hosted by Mahidol University in Bangkok, July 7-9, 2025.

Nominations are due March 14, 2025.

"As a SEAREG Fellow, I had the opportunity to present my working paper and receive valuable feedback from a group of experts, who not only specialize in the theoretical focus and methodology of my paper but, more importantly, possess deep expertise in Southeast Asia. This rare and invaluable combination creates a unique synergy that is difficult to find elsewhere, allowing me to significantly improve my paper. Additionally, as a SEAREG Fellow, I get to become part of a supportive community that includes leading scholars and practitioners with shared interests in Southeast Asia. This network not only fosters intellectual exchange but also opens doors to new research opportunities. This dual benefit makes the SEAREG fellowship an invaluable experience for scholars seeking to expand their research impact, build a professional network, and contribute meaningfully to the study of Southeast Asia."

-Songkhun Nillasithanukroh, 2023 SEAREG Fellow, Assistant Professor at the Clinton School of Public Service

2024 Winter Fellows

Kuan-Wu Chen
PhD candidate, Department of Political Science, University of South Carolina

"Mobilize Penal Populism: Duterte’s Narco List"

Hui-Yuan Neo
PhD candidate, Department of Government, Cornell University

"Suggestion and Suppression: Regulating Public Perception and Public Knowledge of Data in Autocracies"

Jae Hyun Park
PhD candidate, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto

"Civil War Tycoons: Explaining Rebel Group Entrepreneurism in Myanmar"

Tuwanont Phattharathanasut
PhD, Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University
Visiting Fellow, Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies, Academia Sinica

"Continuity and Change in Transnational Youth Activist Networks: From the Network of Young Democratic Asians to the Milk Tea Alliance"

Shourya Sen
PhD candidate, Department of Politics, Princeton University

"The Pull of the Center Inequality and Autocratic Nation Building as Legacies of Revolution in Upland Laos"

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"