Elisabeth Oktofani is an Indonesian writer and former journalist based in Manila. She has interviewed ministers, diplomats, and refugees across Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the UK, writing for the Jakarta Globe and Khabar Southeast Asia and completing an internship at the Associated Press’s Jakarta bureau. She studied Communication Science at Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta and built her early career reporting on terrorism, security, and human rights across Southeast Asia.

She holds a Master’s degree in Culture, Society and Globalization from the University of York. Her dissertation, “Exploring the Rohingya Crisis: Applying Foucault’s Biopolitics to the Rohingya Community in Myanmar,” examined how Myanmar’s state policies systematically targeted the Rohingya community through Foucault’s theory of biopolitics.

She later worked as a Reporting Officer for the World Health Organization in Bangladesh, documenting its public health programs and the Rohingya emergency response in Cox’s Bazar. She wrote Bule Hunter: Money, Sex, and Love, a book on cross-cultural relationships in Indonesia covered by the Jakarta Post and Metro TV, and is writing a second book on Hepatitis B in Indonesia. Since 2020 she has traded Indonesian equities and cryptocurrency as a self-taught investor, using macroeconomic research to guide her decisions.

Elisabeth is a mother, a marathon runner, and a two-time Ironman 70.3 finisher. She lives in Manila, where she continues to write, trade, and train for her next race.