Meet the 2023 Southeast Asia Research Fellows

The Center is pleased to announce the first cohort of CPD-SIF Southeast Asia Research Fellows: Zhao Alexandre Huang, Kitti Prasirtsuk, and Suzie Sri Suparin S. Sudarman.

This program is part of the Center’s Public Diplomacy in Southeast Asia initiative, with support from the Singapore International Foundation (SIF). The program supports new scholarship on the growing role of public diplomacy by countries in the region with implications for the dynamic regional and global relations. The year-long non-residential fellowship will be awarded to up to three scholars each year pursuing promising research in this area, with an emphasis on practical implications for the field.

Dr. Zhao Alexandre Huang is an Information and Communication Sciences Associate Professor at the University of Paris Nanterre. He works at the Laboratory of DICEN-IDF. As a CPD-SIF Southeast Asia Research Fellow and 2023 Ewha Global Fellow, Dr. Huang is a scholar in the field of public diplomacy and is active in international communication and public diplomacy research and practice societies. Precisely, he studies institutional practices, political and public communication strategies, and the formation of strategic narratives in the practice of public diplomacy. His current research focus on China’s international propaganda and digital diplomacy and the digitalization of French public diplomacy.

Dr. Zhao Alexandre Huang's project, "Exploring Digital Public Diplomacy Strategy Related to the South China Sea Issue Between China and ASEAN," examines China’s intermestic digital public diplomacy strategy, network structures, dynamics, and the use of Twitter by ASEAN countries’ diplomats and foreign affairs departments in defending their geopolitical positions and policies regarding the South China Sea.

Dr. Kitti Prasirtsuk is a professor of international relations at the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University in Thailand. He is part of the advisory committee for the International Studies Center (ISC) at the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs and used to serve as a strategic committee at the Thai Ministry of Defence (2014-19). Kitti is currently on the editorial board of the journal Global Studies Quarterly (published by the International Studies Association, U.S.).

Dr. Kitti Prasirtsuk's project, "Thai Public Diplomacy: Approaches, Challenges, and Potentials," examines Thai public diplomacy in depth. The project will have some comparison with public diplomacy of Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, to shed more light on Thai policy practices and public diplomacy in Southeast Asia. The research shall also contribute in terms of understanding how small and medium countries pursue their public diplomacy. 

Suzie Sri Suparin S. Sudarman is a senior lecturer at International Relations Studies Department Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.

Sudarman's project, "Transformational Diplomacy and Indonesia," observes the implementation of transformational diplomacy initiatives in Indonesia and utilizes some elements that originated from the process tracing method and text analysis to shed light on congressional involvement in the implementation of transformational diplomacy.