OUM-CENDEF
SOUTHEAST ASIA FELLOWSHIP
The Southeast Asia Fellowship (SEAF) is an OUM-CENDEF initiative that brings together early- and mid-career scholars, artists, technologists, and practitioners from across the region to examine how digitalisation is reshaping Southeast Asia and its futures. Fellows work on two fronts, pairing scholarly inquiry with creative work developed in collaboration with artists and technologists. Through this, SEAF extends OUM’s work at the frontiers of digital education, both attending to the sociodigital forces reshaping education and bringing critical questions about the region’s futures to wider publics.
Southeast Asia Fellows 2026–27
Sociodigital Futures of Southeast Asia
Listed alphabetically
Christina Mary Richard, Dr Hazrul Hizam Karim, and Dr P. Kangathevi Ponnudorai
Open University Malaysia, Malaysia
Christina Mary Richard is a media scholar and former producer researching digital citizenship, cyberbullying, and online participation. Dr Hazrul Hizam Karim is a counsellor and researcher specialising in psychology, wellbeing, and human behaviour. Dr P. Kangathevi Ponnudorai is an English Language Studies scholar whose work spans technology-enhanced learning, forensic linguistics, and language accessibility. Together, their SEAF project, Built With/out Us: Visually Impaired People Reimagine Inclusive Futures, investigates how visually impaired learners navigate digital education and envision more inclusive futures.
Dr Myra Mentari Abubakar
National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Indonesia
Dr Myra Mentari Abubakar is a cultural historian working on memory, gender, and postcolonial history in Southeast Asia. She holds a PhD from the Australian National University (2024) and is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at BRIN, Indonesia. Her SEAF project, The Algorithmic Heroine: Gendered Memory and the Logic of Digital Platforms in Indonesia, examines how AI and social media platforms distort the historical memory of Southeast Asian female revolutionaries.
Dr Nitipat Pholchai (Ong)
Chiang Mai University, Thailand
Dr Nitipat Pholchai (Ong) works at the edges where bodies, cosmologies, and quantum AI systems meet. Based in Chiang Mai, he is a movement artist, researcher, and educator whose practice asks what becomes possible when indigenous soul-essence ontology and quantum computing listen to each other. He is the founder of Conscious Movement Collective Bangkok and the Khwantum Project, an ongoing inquiry into entanglement, presence, and the futures we might sense into being together. His SEAF project is Beyond the Quantum Divide: Khwan Cosmology as a Vernacular Framework for Southeast Asian Sociodigital Futures.
Dr Ros Sayumphu
Cambodia University of Science and Technology, Cambodia
Dr Ros Sayumphu is an interdisciplinary researcher specialising in Science and Technology Studies (STS), digital heritage, and data ethics. His SEAF project, When Data Becomes Meaning: Digital Interpretation, Ethics, and Cultural Identity at Banteay Chhmar and Banteay Toap, examines how digital technologies shape cultural meaning, heritage interpretation, and community identity in Cambodia. Through an ethical and interdisciplinary lens, he investigates how digital innovation can strengthen culturally inclusive and sustainable sociodigital futures across Southeast Asia.
Dr Shari Eunice T. San Pablo, Dr Roberto B. Figueroa Jr., and Blancaflor P. Arada
University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), Philippines
Led by Dr. Shari Eunice T. San Pablo of the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), this SEAF team integrates expertise across communication and immersive technologies. Dr. Shari is an artist, educator, and Studio Director of Creative Systems & Futures Studio, and her work explores intersections of art, science, and human agency through interactive installations. Dr. Roberto B. Figueroa Jr., Dean at UPOU and ISTaR Laboratory Head, researches extended reality and metaverse-enabled education while leading a DOST-funded immersive science communication project. Blancaflor P. Arada, Assistant Professor and UPOU Registrar, specialises in physical computing and educational innovations, focusing on Tinkercad and immersive space usability. The team’s SEAF project, Fare Play: Invisible Routes, Everyday Life, and Mobility Futures, uses creative and immersive methods to trace how app-based mobility platforms are reshaping everyday life across varied local contexts.