About me

I am currently an Associate of the Harvard University Asia Center, where I formerly held the Jeffrey Cheah Postdoctoral Fellowship. My research primarily centers on sustainability issues related to the bio- and nature-based economy in Borneo and broadly Southeast Asia and East Asia.

I began my career as both junior researcher and Ph.D. candidate at Utrecht University in 2011-2016. I worked on two notable projects: 'Monitoring of Biomass and Bioenergy Trade Flows in the Netherlands' with Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and 'Large-scale Investments in Food, Fibre, and Energy (LIFFE) Options for the Poor' with Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). It was also during this time that I embarked on my first extended fieldwork trips in Borneo for case studies in Kalimantan.

Meanwhile, I also assisted Prof. Martin Junginger in managing the operations of IEA Bioenergy Task 40, an international working group comprising 14 member countries with a focus on 'Sustainable International Bio-energy Trade.'
I completed my Ph.D. with a dissertation titled 'Monitoring the Bio-economy: Assessing Local and Global Biomass Flows, Land-use Change, Carbon Impacts, and Future Land Resources.'

In 2016-2017, I worked at Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM) in the Prime Minister's Department, responsible for executing
Sarawak Biomass Industry Development Plan (SBIDP). I then spent two years in Tokyo at the United Nations University - Institute for the Advanced Studies of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), where I taught in the Master in Sustainability Science program and worked in the editor's office of the 'Sustainability Science' by Springer.

Prior to returning to Malaysia in 2020, I stayed at Harvard to write my first monograph titled '
Transforming Borneo: From Land Exploitation to Sustainable Development.' After completing the book in 2022, I have been focusing on studying the borders in Borneo, particularly Sabah's border economy with Forever Sabah. My research delves into the history of borderscapes and explores future trajectories towards sustainable development. I also wrote a biweekly column for the Borneo Post, the largest English daily newspaper in Borneo until July 2023.

In the meantime, I have written reports for FAO, IRENA, WWF, and UNSDSN on various topics related to the bio- and nature-based economy. I also taught 'Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems' in the Jeffrey Sachs Center's 'Master in Sustainable Development Management' programme in 2021-2023.