Aichiro "Chiro" Suryo Prabowo is a postdoctoral associate in the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP). His research integrates sustainability and resilience issues into public finance and budgeting.

His dissertation, “Essays on Natural Disasters and Fiscal Resilience,” investigated the extent to which American state governments develop their budgets strategically in the face of major disasters, such as hurricanes and flooding. While disasters have been increasing in frequency and magnitude in recent decades, he found that most state governments were more often reactive than proactive, and that many had grown financially dependent on assumptions of federal assistance whenever needed.

At SEAP, Chiro will continue working on the political and financial dimensions of climate change, focusing on Southeast Asia. He will also be actively engaged with an array of research and pedagogical activities within SEAP, including teaching one class on a topic focused on Southeast Asia.

Chiro has published papers on fiscal policies in the United States and Indonesia, and his opinions have been featured in national outlets, including the Jakarta Post, the Conversation, and Seputar Indonesia. Previously, he was a lecturer at Universitas Indonesia and Institut Teknologi Bandung, during which he was awarded the Australian National University’s New Mandala Indonesia Correspondent Fellowship. Beyond academia, he has served as an associate director at the Office of the President of Indonesia (UKP4) in Jakarta and consulted internationally for the World Bank’s offices in Jakarta, Washington DC, Abuja, and Brussels.

Chiro earned his Ph.D. in Policy Studies from the University of Maryland, where he also taught public budgeting and public economics courses, and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago.