Asia experts

Professor Benjamin Reilly

Democratisation, political development, electoral system design

Professor Benjamin Reilly, Dean of the Sir Walter Murdoch School, is a political scientist specialising in democratisation, comparative politics and political development. 

He has also consulted widely on issues of political institutions, ethnic conflict management and electoral system design, a field in which he has a global reputation.

Other areas that Professor Reilly can comment on include democracy in East Asia, US and Australian foreign policy, South Pacific affairs, and China's role in the Asia-Pacific.

Professor Mark Beeson

Politics, economics and security in Asia

Professor Mark Beeson’s work focuses on issues associated with regional political-economy and international relations.

A specialist in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific, Professor Beeson works in the areas of regionalism, regional institutions and the politics of climate change. He also researches foreign, strategic and economic policies of regional states especially Australia, the US and China.

Mark Beeson is Professor of international politics in the School of Management and Governance.

Dr Feng Zhang

Chinese foreign policy and East Asian international relations

Dr Jeffrey Wilson

International resource security

Dr Takeshi Moriyama

Japanese early modern history, culture and literature

Dr Takeshi Moriyama specialises in history, culture and literature of Japan in the early modern period (the 17th-19th centuries).

His research projects particularly focus on the interaction between centre and periphery with regard to cultural and social transformation as well as people’s construction of their own lives.

He has also keen interest in popular literature and culture of early modern Japan. Dr Moriyama is Fellow of Asia Research Centre, Lecturer in Japanese and Coordinator of Murdoch Japanese Exchange Program.

Professor Vedi Hadiz

Social, economic and political change in Indonesia, South-East Asia

Professor Hadiz is currently conducting research on State, Class and Islamic Populism. His research interests revolve around issues of social, economic and political change in Indonesia and South-East Asia as well as broader political economy and political sociology questions.

Vedi Hadiz is Professor of Asian Societies and Politics at Murdoch University and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. He is widely published in acclaimed journals and has authored several books on his area of research.

His most recent book is Localising Power in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia: A Southeast Asia Perspective (Stanford University Press 2010).

Dr Ken Shao

China contemporary reforms, law, culture, global IP, sustainable technology

Dr Shao is an expert of Chinese contemporary reforms, law and classic culture with a focus on global intellectual property (IP) issues and sustainable technology. He is the Director of the unique, prestigious Postgraduate Certificate in Chinese Law, which is partnered between Murdoch University and City University of Hong Kong.

Dr Shao is an Education Committee Member (WA) of Australia China Business Council (ACBC), the premier business organisation in Australia dedicated to promoting business and trade with China. A native Chinese from Mainland, he is experienced in China-related outbound/inbound projects.

Dr Shao has a high quality publication record and he is also an Adjunct Professor at the Center for Studies of IP Rights, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, the most authoritative IP institute in China.

Dr Shahar Hameiri

Non-traditional security in the Asia-Pacific region

Shahar Hameiri’s work has focused on non-traditional (non-military) security issues and their management in the Asia-Pacific region.

In particular he has examined Australian state-building interventions in the South Pacific and Australian aid and security policies in that region. Apart from publishing scholarly work he has written often for online and print media on these issues.

Dr Hameiri is an Australian Research Council Postdoctural Fellow, a fellow of Murdoch University’s Asia Research Centre and a lecturer in international politics in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities

Dr Jane Hutchison

Social and political change in the Philippines

Dr Hutchison’s research interests include labour and urban poor movements in the Philippines, political economy of development effectiveness and transnational activism.

She teaches in Murdoch’s politics and international studies and development studies programs, and is a Fellow of Murdoch's Asia Research Centre.

Associate Professor Caroline Hughes

Governance, post-conflict states and international aid politics

Caroline Hughes conducts research related to the politics of governance and state-building, in post-colonial, post-authoritarian and post-conflict states. Her area of focus is South-East Asia, and she has specialised in the politics of international aid and state-building in post-war Cambodia and Timor-Leste.

Wider interests include comparative politics of governance reform in South East Asia and the political economy of regional integration.

Caroline Hughes is the Director of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University, an internationally recognised centre of excellence in the study of South-East Asia. The Centre is known for its innovative political economy approach to understanding economic and political change in Asia.

Professor David Hill

Indonesian politics, culture and contemporary media

Professor of South-East Asian Studies, David Hill, is Fellow of Murdoch University’s Asia Research Centre. He is also the Consortium Director and Founder of the Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies.

Professor Hill researches political biography, the experience of exile, and contemporary media and culture in Indonesia.

He has written and co-authored several books on Indonesian media, politics, literature, and culture; including The Internet in Indonesia's New Democracy, Media, Culture and Politics in Indonesia, The Press in New Order Indonesia and Beyond the Horizon: Short Stories from Contemporary Indonesia.

Dr Ian Wilson

Political economies and cultural politics in Asia

Dr Ian Wilson is a Research Fellow at Murdoch’s Asia Research Centre.

He examines the political economy of gangs, criminal networks, protection rackets, ethnic and religious militias and private security in Indonesia.

He has also investigated political corruption, cultural politics and the informal economy in Indonesia, in addition to his experience in policy formulation.

Professor James Warren

Socio-economic history and ethnohistory across South-East Asia

Murdoch Professor of South-East Asian Modern History, James Warren, specialises in South-East Asian social and economic history, Singapore-Chinese working class history and society since 1880, slavery and other forms of unfree labour.

He also researches climate, history and society in the Philippines.

In 2003 Professor Warren was awarded the Centenary Medal of Australia for service to Australian society and the humanites in the study of ethnohistory.

Professor Garry Rodan

Political and economic development in East and South-East Asia

Garry Rodan is an Australian Professorial Fellow of the Australian Research Council and a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the Asia Research Centre.

His two major research projects, both funded by the Australian Research Council, are a five-year study into representation and political regimes in Southeast Asia and a three-year study into the politics of accountability reform in Southeast Asia.

Professor Rodan writes extensively on Singapore’s political and economic development and on political regime directions in Southeast Asia.

His books include Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia, The Political Economy of Singapore’s Industrialisation, Political Oppositions in Industrialising Asia and The Political Economy of South-East Asia.

Professor Malcolm Tull

Economic theory, history and policy; Asian economic development; maritime economics

An expert in applied maritime economics, maritime economic history and Asian economic development, Professor Malcolm Tull is the Dean of the Murdoch Business School and a fellow of Murdoch University’s Centre for Asian Studies.

He was principal investigator for the Asian History of Marine Animal Populations Project in 2006 and initiated his own investigation into Indonesian shark fishing as part of this multi-national project.

He teaches economic history, theory and policy and has authored several publications on maritime economics and economic history.

Professor Tull is Vice-President of the International Maritime Economic History Association and President of the Economic Society of Australia Inc, Western Australian Branch.