*AZYUMARDI AZRA, CBE, born on March 4, 1955, is Professor of history & culture; and Special Staff to Vice-President Jusuf Kalla (January 2017-October 2019). He was Director of Graduate School, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta, Indonesia (January 2007-March 2015); and was also Deputy for Social Welfare at the Office of Vice-President of the Republic of Indonesia (April 2007-October 20, 2009).
He was also rector of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University for two terms (1998-2002 and 2002-2006). He earned his MA in Middle Eastern Studies, MPhil and PhD degrees in history all from Columbia University in the City of New York (1992) with the dissertation “The Transmission of Islamic Reformism to Indonesia: Networks of Middle Eastern and Malay-Indonesian `Ulama’ in the 17th and 18th Centuries”. In May 2005 he was awarded Doctoral Degree Honoris Causa in Humane Letters from Carroll College, Montana, USA.
He was fellow at Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OXCIS, 1994-5); a Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia (2004-9); He has been involved as a member of selection committees for research awards. He has been international visiting fellow at the Azhar University, Cairo; Leiden University; Oxford University; University of Philippines; New York University; Columbia University; University of Melbourne, and many others. He regularly presented papers on various subjects at national and international conferences.He has published 44 books; numerous chapters in internationally edited books. He can be contacted at azyumardiazra1@gmail.com and/or azyumardiazra@uinjkt.ac.id