Associate Professor Yeoh Seng-Guan hails from Ipoh. His primary and secondary school education was in St. Paul’s Institution (Seremban) and the Anglo-Chinese School (Ipoh) respectively. After his undergraduate studies, he worked briefly for the National Student Christian Movement of Malaysia and the Council of Churches of Malaysia before pursuing postgraduate studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Upon obtaining his PhD (1997), he was elected an Evans Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge (1997-1999) and a Junior Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge (1998-1999).

In 2001, he was a Kaneka Southeast Asian Fellow at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

As a Senior Fellow of the Nippon Foundation for Asian Public Intellectuals (2005-2006), he conducted fieldwork in northern Philippines for the first time. Since then, he has been affiliated with the Cordillera Studies Center, University of the Philippines, Baguio City.

Between 2011 and 2012, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

Associate Professor Yeoh Seng-Guan was an Associate of the UNESCO Chair in Inter-religious and Inter-cultural Relations Asia-Pacific Region held by the late Emeritus Professor Gary Bouma from 2009-2021.

Between 2019-2024, he was a Co-Investigator of the MIDEQ (Migration for Development and Equality) Hub. One of the largest global migration research projects in recent years, MIDEQ was funded by the United Kingdom Research & Innovation Global Challenge Research Fund. He anchored the Nepal-Malaysia Corridor, one of 6 Corridors in the project. 

Associate Professor Yeoh Seng-Guan sits in various editorial and advisory boards of academic journals around the world.

For the past two-and-half decades, he has been involved in a number of prominent civil society and human rights groups in Malaysia, notably Amnesty International Malaysia, Aliran, and Suaram. 

Within Monash University Malaysia, among other portfolios, he has served in the following capacities:-

- Course Coordinator, Bachelor of Communication (2006-2009)

- Course Coordinator, Masters of Communication and Media Studies programme (2012-2015)

- Deputy Director of the Social & Economic Transformation (SETA)  Campus Multidisciplinary Platform (2012-2016)

- Deputy Head of School (Research), School of Arts & Social Sciences (2019-2021)

- Honours Coordinator/Director, School of Arts & Social Sciences (2007-2011; 2013-2018; 2022-present)

He is also the staff adviser of the student-led Monash University Volunteer Programme (MUVP).

Associate Professor Yeoh Seng-Guan is an urban anthropologist who researches primarily on the intersections between cities, religion, migration, and civil society in Southeast Asia. He also makes ethnographic documentaries. He has done fieldwork in Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Nepal.

Among others, he has conducted research among urban squatters/pioneers, pilgrims, street vendors, soup kitchens, Japanese retirees, foreign migrant workers, and civil society groups on topics ranging from socio-spatial justice, labour migration, diasporic indigenous identities, everyday interfaith relations, and grassroot environmental activism.

Over the years, Associate Professor Yeoh Seng-Guan has taught in a wide range of units at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. They include:-

Media Studies (AMU1277)

Media, Culture & Power/Contemporary Media Theory (AMU2450)

Research Issues and Methodology (AMU4720)

Readings in Social, Cultural and Political Theory (AMU4727)

Contemporary Issues in Asia (AMG5382)

Communications Theories and Practices (AMG4894)

Task Force: Responding to Global Challenges (AMU3575)

Malaysian Studies (AMU2685)

Research Methods in the Arts & Social Sciences (AMU2453)

Social Entrepreneurship Challenges in the Indo-Pacific (AMU2170/AMU3170).

Basics of Ethnographic Fieldwork for PhD students

Between 2004 and 2016, he organised and led the iconic extra-curricular annual study trips to various countries in Southeast Asia (known as the “In Search Of” (ISO) series). These study trips were archived in collective blogs designed and managed by student-travellers: https://insearchofvientianeluangprabang.wordpress.com/

In 2019, the ISO series was replaced by the credit-bearing  “Discovering the Asia-Pacific Study Trips” (AMU 2690).