Background

I have moved to live (mostly) at Bunga, on the far southeast coast of Australia. This comes after a thirty-five year career as an academic working in Australia, America and Indonesia. Along with joining a group of gutsy all-weather swimmers most mornings to venture a kilometre or so through ocean waves and marine creatures large and small, another new passion for me is exploring the Natural History of Bunga.  In terms of formal, roles these days I am Professor Emeritus at Monash University, FASSA and Chair of the Board of the Australia Indonesia Centre.  I also teach an adult English conversation class (online) for Afghan refugees in Indonesia and serve on the International Advisory Committee of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, and the Boards of A Rocha Australia, the Asia Society Australia and the Asia Foundation Australia. 

Prior to moving to Bunga, I worked as the founding President and Pro Vice-Chancellor of Monash University Indonesia (Indonesia’s first foreign university). Other previous work roles include Deputy Vice-Chancellor Global Development at RMIT University, Dean of the College of Asia & Pacific at the Australian National University, founding Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University and Professor at the School of Global Policy Studies at the University of California, San Diego. I also previously served on the Board of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue, as Deputy Chair of the Australian Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation, as a member of the International Advisory Board of the Asian Development Bank Institute and as a member of the NSW State Council of the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia.  At various times I have provided specialist testimony before legislative committees of the Australian Parliament and the United States Congress, performed consulting advisory roles for the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, the Asian Development Bank, the ASEAN Secretariat, the Australian Agency for International Development, the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, the US Central Intelligence Agency, the US National Intelligence Council, the Central Party School Chinese Communist Party and various private corporations.

Scholarly publications included the books The Power of Institutions: In Political Architecture and Governance (author), Integrating Regions: Asia in Comparative Context (edited with Miles Kahler), Seeing Indonesia as a Normal Country co-authored with Douglas Ramage), Business and Government in Industrialising Asia (editor), and Business and Politics in Indonesia (author). I was also the Convenor of the Australia-Indonesia Governance Research Partnership and the Chair of the Singapore government’s Expert Panel for Business, Humanities and Social Sciences, Singapore Academic Research Fund. I received Indonesia President’s Friends of Indonesia award and Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation for contributions to the relationship between Japan and Australia.

That’s the professional road I have traveled thus far. The recent blog postings exploring the Natural History of Bunga on the home-page of this site represent a new and amateur line of research inquiry.