Maria Monica Wihardja is a Visiting Fellow and Co-coordinator of the Media, Technology and Society Programme at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore. She was a former World Bank Economist in the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice and the recipient of the Nikkei Asian Scholar 2023.

She is a member of the East Asia Forum’s Editorial Board and the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies’ Board of Directors. In 2017, she was seconded to the Executive Office of the President of the Republic of Indonesia as a senior advisor to the Deputy Chief Staff in charge of strategic economic issues, where she oversaw the food policy reforms and stunting prevention agenda.

From 2012 to 2014, she represented Indonesia at the Think20 meetings at the Los Cabos, Saint Petersburg and Brisbane G20 Summits. Her main research topics are digital economy, labour market, food security and agricultural reforms, regional and global architecture, and disinformation and electoral propaganda.

She has a PhD in Regional Science from Cornell University, a MPhil in Economics from Cambridge University, and a BA in Applied Mathematics-Economics from Brown University.

She likes art and music, and is a children’s book author.