Azifah Retno Astrina undertakes her PhD program in political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her main interest is in border studies, and she wants to explore the dynamics between the states and the communities on their borders.

She is a lecturer in political science at Universitas Gadjah Mada, where she earned a bachelor’s degree. She later studied for a master’s at Astrakhan State University, Astrakhan Oblast, Russian Federation.