About me
David T. Hill, BA (Asian Studies) (Hons), PhD (ANU), is Emeritus Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Murdoch University in Perth.
His research has covered media, politics, culture, biography and literature in contemporary Indonesia. He has published seven books (either authored, co-authored or edited), more than 40 book chapters and journal articles, and dozens of media articles in both English and Indonesian.
He was the Founder and (until 2018) Inaugural Director of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) (acicis.edu.au), an international consortium of universities that assists Australian and other international students to study in Indonesian universities. ACICIS is now the primary conduit through which Australian students study in Indonesian universities.
In 2009 he was appointed a National Teaching Fellow of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council and authored a national report into the state of Indonesian language teaching in Australian universities in 2012.
That year he was selected as the Australian participant on the ‘Presidential Friends of Indonesia’ program, coordinated by the Indonesian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. In November 2014 Professor Hill received from the Australia-Indonesia Association the inaugural Australia-Indonesia Award for services to the bilateral relationship in the field of Education.
In 2015 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) ‘for significant service to international relations, as an advocate of Australia-Indonesia cross-cultural understanding, and as an educator’.
In 2021 he received the Australia-Indonesia Institute’s Distinguished Service Award ‘in recognition of exceptional service to Indonesian Studies for more than 25 years resulting in substantial deepening of Australian understanding of Indonesian language and culture’. The Australia-Indonesia Institute (AII) was established by the Australian Government in 1989 to contribute to a more broadly based and enduring relationship between Australia and Indonesia. He served as a member of the AII Board in 2011-4.
In October 2023, he was one of five foreigners to receive the prestigious Indonesian Culture Award (Anugerah Kebudayaan Indonesia) from the Indonesian Minister for Education, Culture, Research and Technology for his service in promoting Indonesian culture.