Muktita Suhartono reports from Indonesia and Thailand. She joined The New York Times in 2018 and is based in Bangkok. This is her third stint with The Times. She previously worked for The Times in Jakarta from 2002 to 2007 and from 2009 to 2012. Among other stories, she reported on the 2002 Bali bombing and the 2004 Aceh tsunami. More recently, she reported on the cave rescue in Thailand, the Lion Air crash in Indonesia, the Sulawesi tsunami and the 2019 elections in Thailand and Indonesia. An electrical engineer by training, she became interested in journalism while studying for her degree and worked for several news agencies during the collapse of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998. She grew up in Bangkok and Jakarta and is fluent in Thai, Indonesian and English with a basic knowledge of Mandarin.
