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Tales of Unsung Heroes

On 13 January 2020, Thailand confirmed the first known case of COVID-19 outside of China. As one of the world's most popular tourism destinations, with the majority of its travellers coming from China, this news came as no surprise. One year on, COVID-19 cases and related deaths have remained remarkably low in Thailand, and the country’s management of the pandemic has been hailed as a striking success. So what's the secret behind Thailand's COVID-19 response?

Addressing the politics of knowledge production

The politics of knowledge production is central to the way academics at Australian universities who work in Southeast Asia manage their relationships in the region. How can we address power imbalances between the Global North and the Global South?

Telling stories about what is not there

What exactly is an archive? Who and what are involved in the making and naming of memory projects as archives? What kinds of stories become told through archives, and what stories are muted? Dr Beth Yahp explores the inner workings of the archive-making process, and invites us to pay closer attention to the everyday stories of objects around us.

Taking a long-term livelihoods perspective in rural Myanmar

While poverty has declined substantially in Myanmar over the last decade, 24.8% of the population still lived below the national poverty line in 2017, according to the Asian Development Bank. Development programs have traditionally focused on promoting entrepreneurial forms of agriculture in an effort to address this challenge. Yet this approach fails to grasp the local context, argues Assistant Professor Mark Vicol. His research in Myanmar invites us to rethink the role of agriculture as a driver of social and economic transformation, and adapt development interventions to better support rural households.

Treading Water: The Dark Legacy of Hydropower Development in Myanmar

While hydropower is a vital source of renewable energy, the development of new hydropower plants can often result in adverse environmental, social and human rights consequences. Dr Thiri Shwesin Aung explores the dark side of hydropower development in Myanmar.

Photograph of Wayang Potehi puppet

A Wayang Potehi Riddle

Originating from southern Fujian in China, potehi—a cloth glove puppet theatre, arrived on the Indonesian island of Java in the 18th century, and soon became a feature of many Sino-Javanese communities. While more traditional temple-based performance persists, much contemporary potehi patronage exhibits the strategies of the mixed-culture non-Chinese-speaking communities of Java to perform a streamlined and loyal Sino-Indonesian identity. But what does this mean for the identity of the art form?

Photograph of a fishing boats in Cambodia

Coronavirus, Migrants and Fisheries

The environmental impacts of COVID-19 are much discussed but still lightly documented, in part because they take a long time to manifest. They also tend to be considered at a quite generalised scale. Here we take a more focused look at how the pandemic impacts the livelihood resilience of migrants who come from places dependent on an already vulnerable natural resource, namely fisheries.

15 January 2021

Waste plastic bottles

Plastics recycling goes global with KBR-MURA commercial partnership

Removing plastic from oceans and landfill is a major environmental and social problem. Technology jointly developed by Professor Thomas Maschmeyer is making solutions to this problem possible. Today it goes global with a major commercial partnership.

15 December 2020

NHMRC success for University of Sydney researchers

More than $18 million has been awarded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for 21 health and medical research projects.

28 October 2020

Professor Thomas Maschmeyer

Thomas Maschmeyer wins Prime Minister's Prize for Innovation 2020

The Prime Minister has recognised Thomas Maschmeyer for his work taking fundamental science to commercialisation in fields that address environmental problems: plastic-waste recycling and safe, scalable storage for renewable energy.

02 September 2020

Expert alliance to support improved immunisation in Indo-Pacific

University of Sydney researchers will be at the forefront of ensuring equitable access and support to vaccine programs across the Indo-pacific. Professor Kristine Macartney will lead the DFAT-funded program.

Popular doesn't mean influential among Cambodian farmers

Does being popular make a person influential? Not always. A social network analysis by Sydney researchers found that less popular farmers in Cambodia were in fact more influential than their more popular peers.

NHMRC Investigator Grant Success

MBI's Dr Justin Beardsley has been awarded an NHMRC Investigator Grant which will allow him to continue his research into disease burden of chronic pulmonary aspergillus in TB survivors and advance diagnosis and treatment.

PhD student Nichola Calvini in Laos

Coronavirus: animal disease detectives to be trained across SE Asia & Pacific

Project work in 11 countries funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will aim to prevent spread of zoonotic and animal diseases. Associate Professor Navneet Dhand from Veterinary Science leads the multi-agency program.

Marriage of disciplines traces the journey of a bird flu virus

Australian anthropologist Holly High travelled to Laos for field work in 2018, taking her children and her husband, a veterinarian and epidemiologist. The plan was he would help care for the children and continue his studies, while she did her research. When they unwittingly bought chickens carrying bird flu, they had an unplanned opportunity to combine their skills.

Rice bowl

Happy rice, happy life

Daniel Howell is a PhD candidate who recently completed an internship program travelling to eight villages in Cambodia. He conducted surveys on small scale rice farms investigating perception and management of rice diseases.

25 February 2020

Sonja Van Wichelen standing outside the University's Social Sciences Building.

University of Sydney sociologist bound for the IAS in Princeton

Associate Professor Sonja Van Wichelen has been invited to join the prestigious Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton (IAS), which counts Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer among its past members.

5 things you didn’t know about ASEAN

12 December 2019

Postdoctoral Research Associate Sophie Chao

Dr. Sophie Chao awarded Anthropological Society prize

Dr. Chao was recently awarded the 2019 Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) PhD Thesis Prize for her dissertation, "In the Shadow of the Palms: Plant-Human Relations Among Marind-Anim, West Papua".

Is relocating Indonesia's capital feasible?

Jakarta has a population of 10 million and is rapidly sinking. The Indonesian Government announced plans to relocate the country's capital to the island of Borneo, but will it improve living and environmental conditions?

A computer screen with the Facebook website open on it

University researchers to help Facebook counter hate speech

Researchers from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are the first University of Sydney academics to receive research support from Facebook.

Timor-Leste aims to become world's first plastics-neutral country

University spin-out company Licella will use catalytic technology developed by Professor Thomas Maschmeyer as part of global consortium to donate plastics recycling plant to the people of Timor-Leste.

24 January 2019

International Criminal Court

Calling it what it is

Dr Rosemary Grey joined a panel of experts as the International Criminal Court (ICC) convened for the 17th annual session of the Assembly of State Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute

06 December 2018

International Criminal Court

The challenges of prosecuting gender-based crimes in international courts

The University’s newest postdoctoral fellow Dr Rosemary Grey brings her expertise in international criminal law and gender to the University of Sydney Law School.

12 February 2018

Empowering Indonesia's future leaders

Leaders from Disabled People's Organisations have completed a two-week leadership run by the University of Sydney.