Education
King’s College London (2021-2025)
PhD Geography (Passed with minor revisions)
University of Oslo (2017-2019)
MPhil Human Geography (Specialisation: Climate Change Adaptation and Social Transformation)
Bandung Institute of Technology (2010-2015)
BSc Urban and Regional Planning
Research Experience
King’s College London (2021-2025)
“Nusantara in the Interregnum: Infrastructure-led Development and Technopolitics in the Production of Indonesia’s New Capital City”
King’s College London (Jun-Sep 2025) Research Assistant
(Co-PIs: Dr Zahratu Shabrina, Dr Emma Colven)
“Empowering resilience in a sinking city: a Decision Support System (DSS) for participatory knowledge exchange, urban simulation, and modelling”
– Designed the research impact methodology as part of the Research Excellence Framework (REF).
University of Oklahoma, University of California Berkeley (Jul-Sep 2022)
(PIs: Dr Emma Colven, Beki McElvain)
“Developing a Market: A Comparative Study of Disaster Risk Finance in Indonesia and México”
– Assisted in arranging and conducting interviews with Indonesian informants.
– Conducted desk research on the state of disaster risk financing in Indonesia.
University of Oslo (2018-2019)
“Intellectual Labor and the Capitalist Production of Nature: Forest Fires, Documents, and Socioecological Fixes by Experts in Indonesia”
– Conducted masters project which consisted of literature review, qualitative data analysis, document analysis, and 1-month fieldwork in Indonesia.
– Granted fieldwork funding from the Department of Sociology and Human Geography.
Resilience Development Initiative (PI: Dr Saut Sagala) (2016-2017)
“Increasing Energy Security through Institution Adaptive Capacity, Case Study: Palembang City, Indonesia” (2017)
– Participated in fieldwork, interviewed government officials, conducted preliminary analysis, wrote and edited manuscript drafts.
“The Role of Culture in Facilitating Disaster-Resilient Communities: A Mixed-Method Investigation of the Community Surrounding Mount Sinabung, Indonesia” (2018)
– Liaised PI with local academics and civil society organizations, organized 15-day fieldwork, interviewed victims of volcanic eruption, wrote internal survey reports, analysed preliminary quantitative data.
Employment
Bandung Regency Local Development Planning Agency (Apr-Aug 2021)
Expert Staff
Authored the “Technical Guideline for Local Innovation” aimed to help local government agencies in fully developing public innovation programs.
Resilience Development Initiative (2016-2017)
Researcher
Provided assistance in multiple research projects and actively participated in one. Wrote research proposals and working papers as well as conduct data analyses for senior researchers. Helped organize monthly seminars.
Outreach Manager
Liaised with potential collaborators and partner institutions via email and in person.
Jan-May 2017
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Indonesia + World Vision Indonesia + Resilience Development Initiative
– Conducted policy analysis for child wellbeing related to forest fire-induced haze in Indonesia.
Sep-Oct 2016
German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) + Indonesian Geology Education Centre + Resilience Development Initiative
– Developed a training module titled “Data Collection for Geology-based Spatial Planning” for use in training by government officials.
Resilience Development Initiative (2015)
Intern
Assisted in seminars, workshops, and day-to-day activities.
Teaching Experience
University College London (Sep 2025-present)
Urban Geography (Spring 2026) – Undergraduate 2nd year
Foundations of Geography 2 (Spring 2026) – Undergraduate 1st year
Foundations of Geography 1 (Autumn 2025) – Undergraduate 1st year
Geographies of Infrastructure (Autumn 2025) – Undergraduate 3rd year
King’s College London (Sep 2022-present)
Department of Geography
Geography Tutorials: Critical Thinking and Techniques (Autumn 2025-Spring 2026) – Undergraduate 1st year
Geographical Foundations II: Challenges of the Modern World (Spring 2026) – Undergraduate 1st year
Geographical Foundations I: The Making of the Modern World (Autumn 2025) – Undergraduate 1st year
Geography in Action (Spring 2025, 2026) – Undergraduate 1st year
Critical Geopolitics (Spring 2024) – Undergraduate 3rd year + Postgraduate
Fundamentals of Environement, Politics, and Development (Autumn 2023, 2024, 2025) – Postgraduate
Development Geographies: Livelihoods and Policy Contexts (Autumn 2022) – Undergraduate 2nd year
Bandung Institute of Technology (2016-2017)
Introduction to Engineering and Design I (Autumn 2016) – Undergraduate 1st year
Introduction to Engineering and Design II (Spring 2017) – Undergraduate 1st year
Grant Awards
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) Foundation (2024)
Writing-up grant – £5,600
London Arts and Humanities Partnership Doctoral Training Partnership (LAHP-DTP), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) UK (2021)
Doctoral studentship (Tuition fees + monthly stipend). Grant no. AH/R012679/1 (2021-2024).
Presentations and Speaking Engagements
Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) 2025 (26-29 Aug 2025)
Session: Geographies of Authoritarianism
Title: “Historicising Nusantara: A spatial history of authoritarian urban d/Development“
Global d/Development and contemporary geopolitical rivalry. Second Cold War Observatory. (12-13 Dec 2024)
Title: “From Cold War rationality to the smartness mandate? Political imaginaries of urban d/Development”
GEO 6938 (Special Topics): Cities: Past, Present, and Future. Department of Geography, University of Florida. [Guest lecture] (Nov 18 2024)
Title: “Authoritarian urbanism in Pakistan and Indonesia: A conjunctural comparison of two new cities”
Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) 2024 (Aug 27-30 2024)
Session: The production of urban adaptation: Materials, infrastructures, and labour regimes
Title: “Whose adaptation? Nusantara and the spatiotemporal disjuncture of Indonesia’s ‘urban resilience’ agenda”
Development Studies Association 2024 (Jun 26-28 2024)
Session: New Cities as sites for social (in)justice: lessons from experiments in urban development
Title: “Authoritarian urbanism in Pakistan and Indonesia: A conjunctural comparison of two new cities”
Pint of Science: Building (Dys)Utopia: Urban dreams in the dust? (May 13 2024)
Title: “How (not) to build a capital city from scratch”
Overlooked Cities in Asia: Interrogating Blind Fields in Urban Knowledge and Praxis (Sep 6-8 2023)
Title: “Imagining Nusantara and its Unspectacular Others: Articulations of ‘Overlooking’ in Reproducing Hegemony”
American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting 2023 (Mar 23-27 2023)
Session: Urbanization and its Discontents
Title: “Infrastructure’s apogee: historicizing Indonesia’s new capital city Nusantara”
Beyond Smart Cities Today: Power, Justice and Resistance (Jun 16-17 2022)
Session: The State as Driver of the Smart City Discourse
Title: “Smart Spectacular Urbanism of Asian New Capital Cities“
2nd Annual SEASGRAD (Southeast Asian Studies Graduate Student Association) Student Conference – “Making and Unmaking Southeast Asian Spaces” (May 14-15 2021)
Title: “Experts in the Production of Nature: Indonesian Forest Fire Policy and the ‘Issues’ of Documents”
PL6251: Information and Geo-Spatial Technology in Disaster Management. School of Architecture, Planning, and Public Policy, Bandung Institute of Technology. [Guest lecture] (Feb 15 2021)
Title: “Intellectual Labor and the Capitalist Production of Nature: Forest Fires, Documents, and Socioecological Fixes by Experts in Indonesia”
Other experience
Peer review (2022-present)
Antipode; Environment & Planning A: Economy and Space; Territory, Politics, Governance.
PhD Student Representative & Communications Officer (2022-2024)
Contested Development Research Group, Department of Geography, King’s College London
Umar Al Faruq 