SEAREG Fellows

SEAREG Fellows are exceptional advanced PhD candidates or recent PhD graduates in the social sciences who demonstrate outstanding potential as scholars of Southeast Asia. Fellows are selected twice a year through a rigorous, competitive process.

Selection Process

The selection process begins with nominations, which may come from faculty, peers, or be self-submitted. Nominees provide their strongest unpublished paper. Each submission is anonymized and evaluated in a blind review by a committee of three faculty members. Reviewers independently rank the papers, then deliberate as a group to choose the most compelling scholarship.

Opportunities for Fellows

Selected Fellows present their work at SEAREG conferences, where they receive valuable feedback from a diverse community of established and emerging scholars.

A Launchpad for Impact

SEAREG Fellow alumni have gone on to secure academic and professional roles across the globe, becoming leaders in the field of Southeast Asian studies.

2025 Winter Fellows

Damian Boldt
University of Virginia

“Don’t Stand by Silently and Watch: How Shaming Can Encourage Compliance with Human Rights Norms”

Yi Ning Chang
Harvard University

“The State, Society, and Anticolonial Struggle in Lee Kuan Yew's Early Political Thought, 1950-1959”

Matthew Koo
Yale University

"Who Stays Loyal? Security Personnel Support in a Dominant-Party Regime"

Tatsuya Koyama
Emory University

“Militarized Sanctuary: How Incomplete Protection of Indigenous Peoples Entangle Them into Armed Conflict”

Vincent Jerald Ramos
Southampton University

“Too Little, Too Weak? Paid Parental Leaves and Workers’ Bargaining Response”

2025 Summer Fellows

Attawat Assavanadda, University of Hong Kong: "The Tie that Still Binds: Chinese Ethnicity and Enduring Affinity with China"

Rune Wriedt Larsen, London School of Economics: "The Organisational Origins of Onset: Communist Civil War in the Philippines and Thailand after the Second World War"

Yilin Su, University College London: "Fake News Labels and Public Opinion in Nondemocracies: Evidence from Singapore"

Three people smiling and standing together — *From left: Rune Wriedt Larsen, Attawat Assavanadda and Yilin Su*

Participating in the SEAREG Summer Conference as a SEAREG Fellow has been one of my best conference experiences so far. The quality of the feedback on my work was very high. Meanwhile, SEAREG's focus on community building among junior scholars meant that I left Bangkok not only with a long list of ideas for how to improve and expand my work, but also as part of a network and with new friendships.

Rune Wriedt Larsen