Zara Maxwell-Smith is an interdisciplinary researcher and lecturer in Indonesian Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS), UNSW Canberra. Zara completed her doctorate at the Australian National University in 2024, where she taught from 2013-2023. She has worked across a range of universities and schools, and as a researcher for the Australian government. She holds a Graduate Diploma in Teaching as well as Bachelors in Arts and Asian Studies (ANU).

Current Research Interests

• Indonesian language, linguistics, politics
• Politics and culture in Southeast Asia/Indo-Pacific
• Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Automated Speech Recognition (ASR)
• Equity in AI, Open Source technologies
• Asian literacy, language education

2024    The Australian National University - Doctorate Degree in Linguistics 
2012    The University of Canberra - Graduate Diploma of Education in Secondary Teaching
2011    The Australian National University - Bachelor`s degree Asian Studies (Indonesian Language Major)
2011    The Australian National University - Bachelor`s degree Arts (Applied Linguistics Major)