NusPARC Screening Committee

A formal application process for a grant or stipend determines the recipients for financial awards issued by the Nusantara Performing Arts Research Centre.  The applications are examined by an independent screening committee, which is appointed by the NusPARC Board of Directors. This screening committee comprises scholars and experts from the academic and professional performing arena in the Southeast Asian performing arts.

  • Professor Dr. Jacqueline Pugh-Kitingan (BA Honours, Monash University; Ph.D., University of Queensland) is currently an Honorary Professor at the Borneo Institute for Indigenous Studies (BorIIS) at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and is also an Adjunct Professor of Asia eUniversity. Before this, she served as Professor of Ethnomusicology in the UMS Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, and as Head of the BorIIS Indigenous Culture and Heritage Cluster. She also formerly held the Kadazandusun Chair at UMS (2003-2015). Before joining UMS in 2000 as a lecturer, she worked for many years in the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Sabah, and also in the Sabah Cultural Board. She has researched music across Sabah and among the Huli of Papua New Guinea. Winner of two PEREKA Gold Medals, her research interests include music and language, music, dance and ritual, organology, ethnographic mapping, reviewing the Ethnologue® for Sabah Languages, the megalithic culture of Sabah’s Tambunan District, Sabah Native Law, and indigenous ritual responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Sabah. From 2009 to 2010, she was appointed Adjunct Research Fellow in Anthropology, at the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Australia. She is Regional Vice-President for Sabah of the Borneo Research Council, a member of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts in Southeast Asia, a Life Member of the Musicological Society of Australia and also Persatuan Sains Sosial Malaysia, and has served on expert committees of the National Heritage Department of Malaysia.

  • Ms. Janet Pillai (BA in Drama & Theatre (Hons.), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, MA in Theatre Arts, University of Hawaii, USA is a senior lecturer in the Drama and Theatre Department, School of Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang. She leads Arts-ED, a non-profit organization specializing in community-based arts and heritage education for young people. She is also a pioneer in children's theatre, having directed more than 25 stage performances. Pillai's research interest is in the area of creative pedagogy, cultural conservation and learning theories. She won the DIGI Amazing Malaysian Award in 2006, and was the recipient of the BOH Cameronian Arts Awards for ‘Cross Cultural Champion of the Arts 2004’ for her work with young people and local communities.

  • MCM (Matthew Constancio Maglana) Santamaria is a Professor of Asian and Philippine Studies at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. He received his Doctor of Law in Political Science from the Kyoto University Graduate School of Law in 1999. He is currently the Assistant Dean for Cultural Affairs of the Asian Center. He has published many book chapters, articles, and essays on the themes of ethnic conflict, Sama-Bajau ethnography, ritual and performance, and dance studies. He is also a renowned theater choreographer who pursues his advocacy in helping sustain Sama-Bajau traditional music and dance through the Bunga Arts Link (BAL), a performance group that he established in 2004.

  • An ethnomusicologist and gamelan musician by training, she completed her Master of Arts (Performing Arts – Music) at the University of Malaya under the supervision of Professor Mohd Anis Md Nor. In 2013, she was selected as a recipient of the Fulbright Malaysian Graduate Study and Research Program, which allowed her to pursue her doctoral studies in the United States at Wesleyan University, Connecticut. From 2019 to 2024, Christine served as a lecturer under the Contemporary Music (Audio Technology) program at Sunway University. She is now working at BFM89.9, Malaysia’s only independent radio station, as a producer and presenter.