My interest in Indonesian politics and Islam was awakened as an undergraduate at Monash University and they have remained the focus of my academic and professional activity since then. My PhD thesis was a study of the traditionalist Muslim party, Nahdlatul Ulama. More recently, I have examined terrorism, transnational Islamist movements and religious commodification in Indonesia, as well as broader trends in contemporary Islamic politics in Southeast Asia.

Career highlights

Appointed Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to tertiary education and Australia-Indonesia relations (2021); Head of the Department of Political and Social Change, ANU (2013-2018); Chair of the Australia-Indonesia Institute within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2016-present); Director of the Partnership in Islamic Education Scholarships (PIES) Program (2012-present); Visiting Professor in Indonesian Politics at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC (2003); Lady Davis Trust Visiting Professor In Asian Studies and Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (2019-2020); Indonesia analyst with the Australian Government (1997-1999); and consultant on Indonesian civil society, election and Islamic education programs.

Indonesian politics, modern Islamic political history, democratisation and Islamism, and jihadist ideology and strategy.