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Governance
Learn more about our governance and management
The Sydney Southeast Asia Centre is managed by the Centre Director, who is supported by an Executive Committee, Country Coordinators and a Board of Management.
Strategic and operational management is vested in a Director who is supported by an Executive Committee composed of academic members associated with the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, and the Country Coordinators. The Centre's operations are overseen by the University Executive Committee for Multidisciplinary Initiatives (UE MDI Committee).
Director
The Director serves as the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre’s manager and academic head. She or he is a senior academic specialising in any area of Southeast Asia, and a Professor of the University of Sydney.
The Director is ultimately responsible for the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre’s performance, including the delivery of its mission and goals, and the effective management of its resources to sustain and enhance its academic and outreach roles.
Our people
Professor Michele Ford
Director
Professor Michele Ford is Director of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre and an ARC Future Fellow. Her research interests are in Southeast Asian labour movements, labour migration and trade union aid. Michele’s research has been supported by several Australian Research Council Discovery Project grants related to these and other topics. She has also been involved in extensive consultancy work for the international labour movement and the Australian Government.
Dr Thushara Dibley
Deputy Director
Thushara Dibley conducts research into social movements in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on Indonesia. Her recent research projects have focused on the role of NGOs in peace-building in Timor-Leste and Indonesia and on the disability movement in Indonesia. In her role as Deputy Director, Thushara is responsible for the following areas:
- overseeing the research grant program
- coordinating internal teaching programs such as the Honours Bootcamp and Postgraduate Retreat
- managing key events including the ASEAN Forum and policy roundtables
- teaching short courses.
Dr Elisabeth Kramer
Deputy Director
Elisabeth Kramer completed a PhD in Indonesian Studies that focused on Indonesian political parties and their use of anti-corruption discourse in political communication and campaigning. During her PhD, she was a recipient of the Prime Minister’s Australia-Asia Award for 2012, which allowed her to undertake a year of fieldwork in Indonesia hosted by the Catholic University of Atma Jaya in Jakarta. Elisabeth has taught a number of Southeast Asia related courses covering themes related to politics, social activism and development, as well as Indonesian language to non-native speakers. She holds a BSc/BA(Asian Studies)(Hons) from the University of Sydney and a Master of International and Community Development from Deakin University. Between studying and working in academia she has also worked as a public servant, a development consultant and taught English as a second language. Elisabeth has also lived and worked in Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Dr Natali Pearson
Curriculum Coordinator
Natali Pearson is a Curriculum Coordinator at the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the protection, management and interpretation of underwater cultural heritage in Southeast Asia. Her research seeks to make an intervention in museological and heritage discourses by theorising underwater cultural heritage as worthy of critical scholarly attention beyond that afforded by the prevailing, maritime archaeological, perspective. By conceptualising underwater sites and objects as having agency, her research aims to expand popular curatorial approaches beyond tropes of treasure and pirates to a far broader understanding of underwater cultural heritage that accounts for the historicity and connectedness of the ocean and the material remains it contains.
Natali is co-editor of Perspectives on the Past at New Mandala and a regular contributor to The Conversation. Natali has completed a PhD on underwater cultural heritage in Indonesia (2018, USYD). She also holds a Master of Museum Studies (2013, USYD); a Master of Arts in Strategy and Policy (2006, UNSW); and a Bachelor of Arts (Asian Studies) with Honours Class One in History and Indonesian Studies (2002, UNSW). She has worked at the Asia Society’s galleries in New York and Hong Kong, and as a consultant to the Asia Society Arts & Museum Summit. She is an alumni of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies and the Asialink Leaders Program. Prior to this, she worked in Asia-focused defence and anti-money laundering / counter-terrorism financing roles in the Australian federal government.
The Director chairs an Executive Committee consisting of academic staff drawn from the membership. The Executive Committee is appointed by the Provost on the recommendation of the Director, and will serve a three-year term unless otherwise indicated by the Provost. The Executive Committee meets on average four times per year to provide advice and make recommendations to the Director on the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre’s:
- strategic directions, outcomes and priorities
- annual operating and action plans
- allocation of internal grants
- performance against strategic and operating KPIs and outcomes.
In addition, each member of the Executive Committee takes special responsibility for one of five areas of operation (community outreach; curriculum; policy and regional outreach; research; research training). In this capacity, they advise on, but also contribute to, Southeast Asia-related activities in their designated area.
Community Outreach Adviser
The University of Sydney Business School
School of History and Philosophy of Science
Curriculum Adviser
Associate Professor Russell Bush
Sydney School of Veterinary Science
Department of Sociology and Social Policy
Regional and Policy Engagement Advisers
Sydney Institute of Agriculture
Research Advisers
Sydney Law School
Sydney School of Veterinary Science
Research Training Advisers
Associate Professor Damien Field
Sydney Institute of Agriculture
School of Civil Engineering
The Country Coordinators serve as focal points for activities related to each country in the region, as part of a committee chaired by the Director. They advise on strategic developments in different countries and bring together researchers across the University of Sydney who work in the eleven countries of the region.
Cambodia
Associate Professor Daniel Tan
Faculty of Science
Indonesia
Faculty of Science
Laos
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Malaysia and Brunei
Associate Professor Marina Kennerson
Faculty of Medicine and Health
Myanmar
Faculty of Engineering and IT
The Philippines
Faculty of Engineering and IT
Singapore
Sydney School of Education and Social Work
Thailand
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Timor-Leste
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Vietnam
Associate Professor Tihomir Ancev
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Meet our Centre management
