Virginia Matheson Hooker is Professor Emeritus and  Fellow in the Dept of Political & Social Change, College of Asia and the Pacific, at The Australian National University. She retired as Professor of Indonesian and Malay in the Faculty of Asian Studies, the Australian National University in January 2007. Her research has focussed on Islam in Southeast Asia, literature and social change in Malaysia and Indonesia, and Indonesian political culture. Her most recent book, co-edited with Dr Greg Fealy, is an award-winning sourcebook on contemporary Islam in Southeast Asia.

She has organised international conferences on Islam in Southeast Asia (1993 and 2000) with the proceedings of the second being published in 2004 as Islamic Perspectives on the New Millennium (co-edited with Amin Saikal). She has contributed eight articles to the benchmark Encyclopaedia Islam (E.J. Brill, the Netherlands) as well as to Malaysian encyclopedias. She has been a member of Humanities committees of the Australian Research Council and participated in a number of reviews of Asian Studies in Australia. She is known for her contribution to the development of Asian Studies, especially studies of Indonesia, in Australia

Between 2003 and 2009 she coordinated a special Muslim Leaders Exchange program between Indonesia and Australia (funded by the Australia Indonesia Institute, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade). She has been awarded  major grants to provide graduate research training programmes for academic staff of Indonesian regional Islamic universities.

She was a member of the Board of the Australia Indonesia Institute for eight years and former member of the Foreign Affairs Council of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2000-2003). She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2003.

In 2022, She was awarded the Order of Australia AM  for ‘Significant Service to tertiary education, and to Asia-Pacific relations’ and Awarded Australia Indonesia Institute (DFAT) Distinguished Service Award for contribution to Indonesian Studies.

Islamic calligraphic art in Indonesia

Islam in Southeast Asia.

Contemporary Indonesian political culture

Islam and social change in Indonesia

Islam and the process of regional autonomy in Indonesia

Systems of Islamic education in Indonesia