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Biography
She obtained her PhD in International Development Studies from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2016 and held Visiting Fellowship positions with the Australian National University (2019) and the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (2022). Ayu has more than 15 years of combined experience in industry, international organizations, and academia. She previously worked with Unilever, McKinsey & Company, Millward Brown (Kantar Group), and the National University of Singapore (2006-2009) and was an analyst with the World Bank Group in Indonesia (2013-2015). She was also a project researcher at Turku University of Applied Sciences (2017-2019) and a research consultant with the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) (2018-2022).
Teaching
Courses she is presently teaching:
TME2 Globalisation and Corporate Responsibility (Spring 2020 - present) --5 ECTS (Responsible teacher)
TMSe2 Climate Change and Trade in the Global South (Fall 2020 - present) --6 ECTS (Responsible teacher)
Urban Southeast Asia (Fall 2023 - present) --5 ECTS (Responsible teacher)
Research
She is a trained development economist, with a research interest lies at the intersection of microeconomics and sustainable development to achieve Agenda 2030. In her dissertation, she united these strands of approaches to explore the role of social networks in sustainable technology diffusion and adoption in Indonesia and Ethiopia through a randomized controlled trial.
She has been working primarily on the following research projects:
(1) Heterogenous effects on gender and migrants on sustainable production and consumption in Finland and Indonesia (funded by Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation, 2020-2023)
(2) Good and bad palm oil: Food security, paradigm shift and stakeholder negotiations in Indonesia and the EU (funded by KONE Foundation, 2023-2027)
(3) Market information and climate-smart practices of Indonesian aquaculture communities: Exploring the effects of an Online Community of Practices (international collaboration with JIRCAS, the University of Tokyo, and Hitotsubashi University, funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences, 2020-2023)
(4) Community-driven tree planting for sustainable forestry in Namibia (led by the University of Turku Biodiversity unit, funded by UTU Global Seed Funding, 2024).