Two finish lines, one step at a time

When Annisa Hasanah first arrived in New Zealand in 2019, she had never left her home city of Yogyakarta.

She had packed her life into a suitcase and travelled to Aotearoa as an international student; drawn here by a name she had come across while trawling the University of Auckland website.

Associate Professor Theuns Hennings’ research interests in infrastructure resilience, asset management and climate adaptation immediately caught her attention.

"I was like, ‘Oh this is interesting.’ I feel like I really want to meet this person and talk to him. I told him I read his paper and that he motivated me."

A few months later, Annisa had been accepted for a masters degree, and Henning had taken her on as a student.

At the end of her masters, he offered her a scholarship to continue into a PhD, researching how ageing infrastructure such as roads and power networks can be made more resilient to climate change and natural hazards.

Seven years on, Henning is still by her side, now as a research mentor as Annisa begins her career at the University.

"I've been supervised by someone who’s more like a lifetime mentor for me in my career, study, and life, so it's boosted my academic experience and journey," she says.  

It's been a continuous journey for Annisa, from degree to degree and now into professional life.

"For a long time, I imagined there would eventually be a point when everything became quieter and I would feel ready for whatever came next," she says.

Instead, she realised that a lot of growth can happen while several things are happening at once.

"Sometimes you become ready by doing."

Running became one way of learning to live with the motion.

Annisa started running in 2022, beginning with 10km tracks before progressing to several half marathons. In September, just two weeks before her graduation, she ran her first full marathon in Sydney.

The two achievements might appear worlds apart, but to Annisa, the journeys are remarkably similar.

"Both running and doing a PhD taught me that the big milestones are usually built through much smaller, ordinary decisions repeated over time – including carrying on when you just want to give up. That mindset has been really useful in life."

On 23 September 2026, Annisa crossed that second finish line, graduating with a doctorate in civil engineering, with her mum, brother and partner cheering her on.

There's been little time to slow down since.

Alongside her research role, Annisa is teaching and supervising students at the University, working with industry on consulting projects, writing papers, developing new research proposals – and attending University choir practice.

"I've worn many different hats and now I've worn another one – the bonnet!" 

Perhaps the juggling feels familiar because learning has always been part of Annisa’s family story.

Her mum, dad, aunties and uncles are academics in science, while her grandparents were teachers. Among her generation of cousins, she is the first and only one to continue along the academic path to a PhD.

"Pursuing knowledge and studying feels natural. Passing knowledge on to the next generation feels like a calling," she says.

Her research, too, is about thinking beyond the present.

Her PhD showed that the cheapest infrastructure strategy today is not necessarily the cheapest over the next 30 years, once climate uncertainty and service disruption are considered.

Her current work continues to explore how infrastructure owners can make decisions about resilience and risk when the future is uncertain.

The idea of building for generations to come has also prompted Annisa to look backwards, towards her own family’s Javanese history and its intellectual and creative traditions.

"We're building or deciding things for now, but it's actually for the long-term, for the next generations," she says.

"To be able to do that well and give something to the future, we need to first learn from the past."

On her next trip to Indonesia, Annisa plans to start in the library archives, learning more about the history she has inherited.

"My ancestors expressed creativity through manuscripts and arts. What interests me is not reproducing that past but thinking about how each generation contributes through the possibilities available in its own time," she says.

For Annisa, research is one way of making that contribution: learning from what has come before, adding something of her own, and passing knowledge forward.

"I like the idea that continuity does not necessarily mean repetition, but it can mean taking values such as curiosity, creativity and learning, and expressing them differently in a modern context."

And perhaps that's why the finish line never feels quite like an ending.

"I hope my career eventually becomes about more than papers, qualifications or titles," she says.

"I want my work to continue through decisions that improve because of the research, methods that become useful in practice or the students I help grow."

She says learning more about what earlier generations created has made her think about what someone looking back at her own generation might one day find.

"I want to live and contribute in a way that might make me an ancestor worth remembering too.”