Born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia, Arimbi is a doctoral student in Public and Urban Policy at The New School. She previously earned a Master of Science in Urban Planning from Columbia University, concentrating in Community and Economic Development and International Planning.

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Her research interests center on inequality through the lens of extractivism and capitalism, focusing on how political and economic power intersect with environmental degradation, displacement, material remnants, collective memory, and gaps in policy enforcement. She examines sites shaped by extractive industries such as oil and gas drilling, palm oil plantations, and mining, analyzing how these processes produce environmental harm and disasters, drive social disruption, and complicate recovery. She also explores how indigenous practices of collective care and communal autonomy emerge in response to the absence or failure of institutional support. She previously investigated these dynamics in her master’s thesis on the Sidoarjo mudflow disaster in Indonesia.

 

Arimbi holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Universitas Pembangunan Jaya and has worked as an architectural designer and research assistant in Indonesia. Her academic and professional fieldwork spans Indonesia, Ghana, Paraguay, and Italy, covering topics including heritage preservation, community-led design, and the spatial and cultural implications of disasters. She combines spatial analysis, ethnographic interviews, and visual storytelling in her research, drawing on GIS mapping, data visualization, and documentary approaches. Beyond planning and architecture, she also works with photography and visual communication, with experience in graphic design and UI/UX tools, and she often integrates these methods to communicate spatial and social complexity.