Rate My Professor Jessica Kruk

Dr Jessica Kruk is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, Asian Studies, at the University of Western Australia. She is a sociolinguist whose academic background is rooted at Monash University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Languages in 2011, an Honours degree in Linguistics and Indonesian Studies in 2012 with a thesis titled "Chinese Indonesian language and ethnic identity in online interactions," and a PhD in Linguistics in 2018 with a doctoral thesis entitled "Chronotopically Conditioned Identities: The Chinese Indonesian Context."

Dr Kruk's research focuses on identifying and addressing the exclusion of marginalised people from social, economic, and cultural life in the Asia Pacific region. Her projects include investigations into the languages and identities of ethnic Chinese minorities in Indonesia, explorations of how extreme metal musicians in the Asia Pacific compose lyrics in non-English languages, efforts to reimagine and reinvigorate Indonesian language teaching, and initiatives to enhance language communication aimed at fighting prejudice in the general public. She has produced significant scholarly contributions, including the monograph Kalimantan's Ethnic Chinese Youth: Language and Identity in a Deglobalizing World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), the co-authored book Peripheral Linguistic Brutality (University of Hawaii Press, 2025, with Wesley C. Robertson), "Doing multilingualism through transnational linguistic landscaping: The MultiDiv experience" (Language and Education, 2025, with Melina Delmas, Louisa Willoughby, and Jo Angouri), "Sign language for all? Profile and retention of students in a beginner sign language program" (Modern Language Journal, 2025, with Louisa Willoughby and Adam Schembri), "Interlocutor reference and competing social imaginaries in a predominantly Chinese Indonesian workplace in West Kalimantan" (Language and Communication, 2026), and "Towards a sociolinguistics of deglobalization" (Language in Society, 2024, with Gerald Roche). Dr Kruk delivered the public lecture "Collaboration, Innovation, and Cultural Exchange" on 19 November 2024.