Dr Helena Varkkey

Helena Binti Muhamad Varkkey is a social scientist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya, and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She holds a PhD in International and Strategic Studies from the University of Sydney, and has authored several books, book chapters and journal articles for publishers including Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and Brill. Her latest book is ‘The Forests for the Palms: Essays on the Politics of Haze and the Environment in Southeast Asia’, published in 2021 by ISEAS, Singapore. She also served as a Consultant for the ‘Final Review of the Roadmap on ASEAN Cooperation towards Transboundary Haze Pollution Control with Means of Implementation’ for ASEAN Secretariat in 2020-2021, and as a Subject Area Expert for environmental politics, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia, between 2016 and 2018.