The Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellowship in Southeast Asian Studies has been made possible by a generous gift from professor emeriti L.A. Peter Gosling and Linda Yuen-Ching Lim.
Ei Thin Zar, Ph.D.
2025-2026 Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Interests: emergence of nationalisms and their relationships, language policies in the state and non-state education systems of Burma
Ei Thin Zar is an education studies scholar focused on language policies and how nationalism operates in education systems. She received her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; an MA in English language teaching, from Assumption University in Thailand; and her BA in English from Mawlamyine University in Myanmar.
Jefferson Ragragio
2024-2025 Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Interests: media and politics, press freedom, democracy. political movements, populism
Jefferson Ragragio is a media studies scholar focused on populism and the press in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Ragragio received his Ph.D. from Hong Kong Baptist University; his MA from University of the Philippines Diliman; and his BA from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Ragragio’s academic writing has appeared in Javnost - The Public, Media, War, & Conflict, Journalism, Communication, Culture and Critique, and the Journal of Language and Politics.
Ragragio is associate professor of media and democracy in the Department of Science Communication at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños.
Nor Ismah, Ph.D.
2023-2024 Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Interests: gender and Islam in Indonesia, women's religious authority, media, Islamic feminism, fatwa-issuing practices among women.
Nor Ismah is a scholar of gender and Islamic law. She graduated with her Ph.D. in Southeast Asian studies from Leiden University Institute for Area Studies in the Netherlands; her MA in Southeast Asian Studies from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa; and her BA in Arabic Language and Literature from Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Indonesia. She is the author of Women Issuing Fatwas: Female Islamic Scholars and Community-Based Authority in Java, Indonesia (forthcoming 2026, Edinburgh University Press). Her academic writing has appeared in Islamic Studies Review, Melbourne Asia Review, Journal of Asian Studies, and the International Quarterly for Asian Studies.
Nor is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Religion and Globalisation Cluster at the Asia Research Institute in Singapore.
Realisa Darathea Masardi, Ph.D.
2022-2023 Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow
Research Interests: migration and refugee studies, children and youth studies, forced migration in Indonesia, refugee resilience, unaccompanied minors.
Realisa Darathea Masardi is an anthropologist specializing in migration and refugee studies. Her work examines the experiences of youth refugees and the policies that affect them. She earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands; her MA from the University of Sydney in Australia; and her BA in cultural anthropology from Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Indonesia. She is a co-editor and contributor to Merengkuh Sauh, Berlayar Jauh: Diskursus Kebaruan Antropologi di Indonesia (Embracing the Anchor, Sailing to the Far Horizon: Novelty of Anthropology Discourse in Indonesia) alongside Khidir Marsanto.
Realisa currently works as a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at UGM.
