In 2023, Rini joined CPAS as a Research Fellow for the ANU – UNESCO Chair on Science Communications for the Public Good. Her research focuses on operationalizing social science theory in studies of climate, energy transition, and environmental change, drawing upon human geography, political ecology, STS, and development studies, and is grounded empirically in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. Her previous research delved into how place-based discourses, politics, and actor agencies substantively reshape how neoliberal climate and environmental projects unfold in Southeast Asia.

Before joining CPAS, Rini worked as an academic in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, the National University of Singapore, and the ANU—Crawford School of Public Policy.

She received the 2019 APEC Women Scientist Fellowship, which recognized her contributions as a high-achieving female researcher in Asia Pacific Economic Countries. 

Rini is leading two significant research grants that analyse socio-environmental impacts and justice in the energy transition and critical mineral developments in the Asia Pacific funded by the Open Society Foundation and the ANU - Institute of Climate, Energy and Disasters Solutions.

From 2021 to 2022, she spearheaded a work package as one of the chief investigators for a British Academy-funded project on the just transition in the Asia Pacific. This project investigated the barriers and opportunities associated with rural communities’ roles and aspirations in realizing just and inclusive decarbonization in the context of Indonesia’s rapidly changing agricultural sector. 

Rini’s transdisciplinary work successfully collaborates with civil society sectors, government bodies, and authors from different disciplinary backgrounds. She is a member of the Indonesia - KAVLI Frontiers of Science fellowship, organized by the Indonesian Academy of Sciences and the United States National Academy of Sciences, which acknowledges young scholars’ contributions to interdisciplinary knowledge and collaboration.

Awards

• Global Public Voices Fellowship 2021 - 2022.

Sponsored by Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Cornell University, this fellowship promotes scholars’ public engagement on campus, in natioal debates and around the world.

• APEC Women in Research Fellowship in 2019.

The Australia APEC Women in Research Fellowships are intended for high-achieving female researchers from APEC economies for research opportunities in partnership with Australian education and research institutions. The fellowships aim to support women’s economic empowerment in the APEC region and raise the profile of female role models in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.