Principal Investigator
Dr Mahendra Sethi, INDIA
- Dr Mahendra Sethi is an urban environment expert exploring the role of cities at the interface of global changes and currently leads an urban sustainability group at the Indian Society of Applied Research & Development. He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at the Technical University Berlin, Germany, United Nations University (UNU-IAS) PhD Fellowship at UNU-IAS and Visiting Scholarship at Kyoto University in Japan. He bears interest in the built environment, megacities, policy and governance, pandemic resilience, environmental planning, optimisation models, green technologies and responsible development in ecologically sensitive areas. Over the years, Dr Sethi has published over 40 peer-reviewed research papers, books/ book chapters, policy articles and project reports with renowned publishers, including Nature, PLoS ONE, Routledge, WSP, Springer, ERL, Elsevier, etc. He has been a guest faculty at premier institutions including IGES, Sophia University, Meiji Gakuin University, TERI School of Advanced Studies, Freie University, Himachal Institute of Public Administration, School of Planning & Architecture Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia Central University and been offered Government of India’s GATE Scholarship (2005-07) and Liverpool University Scholarship (2005).
Co-PI / Collaborators
Aki Suwa, JAPAN
- Dr Aki Suwa is a Professor at the Faculty of Contemporary Society, Kyoto Women’s University (KWU). Her primary responsibility at KWU is to research environment and sustainable policy and approach based on community and regional analysis in Japan and Asia. Prior to her appointment, she was a Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS), under the Sustainable Urban Futures Program, working on a project funded by the Ministry of Environment Japan (MOEJ), “Urban Development with Co-Benefits Approach” (2010-2014). Her research focuses on how environmental understanding facilitates policy formulation and how this subsequently influences the degree of policy implementation on the ground. Prior to working in UNU-IAS, she completed a doctorate from the University College London, the University of London, about energy planning and back-casting analysis to assess whether and how Japan can use its indigenous renewable energy to substitute fossil fuels nuclear energy dependency. She also holds an MSc degree in Environmental Technology and Policy from the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, the University of London. She has a variety of academic and business experiences, with a close collaborative relationship with non-governmental climate research institutes in Japan.
Co-PI / Collaborators
Akhilesh Surjan, AUSTRALIA
- Dr Akhilesh Surjan is the research and theme leader of the ‘Humanitarian, Emergency and Disaster Management Studies Program’ at Charles Darwin University. He is proactively engaged with the issues of disaster-environment-climate risk reduction and global change and sustainability in the context of human settlements. Dr Surjan has served as a Lead Author of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also as Contributing Author of the United Nation’s Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. In addition to associating with esteemed universities, Dr Surjan has also successfully worked with the United Nations and government and non-government organizations in the Asia-Pacific. Dr Surjan is Section Editor of Progress in Disaster Science (Elsevier) and Series Editor of the book series Disaster Resilience and Green Growth (Springer). He also served as Editor of Sustainability Science (Springer) from 2013 to 2019. Previously, Dr Surjan worked with the United Nations University (Tokyo) and Kyoto University (Japan), where his contributions were directed towards postgraduate teaching and research, capacity building and productively collaborating and networking with multi-tiered stakeholders.
Co-PI / Collaborators
Li-Jing Liu, CHINA
- Dr Li-Jing Liu is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Energy & Environmental Policy Research (CEEP), Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), China. She is graduated from Guangxi University, majoring in Environmental Engineering with a bachelor’s degree in engineering in 2015. She received her PhD degree from Beijing Institute of Technology in June 2020, majoring in Management Science and Engineering, Energy Economics and Climate Policy, with a doctorate in management. From September 2018 to September 2019, she studied at the Technical University of Berlin as a joint PhD student. Her research interests include environmental economics, climate change economics, and co-benefits modelling.
Co-PI / Collaborators
Ram Avtar, JAPAN
- Dr Ram Avtar is working as Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Japan. He developed methods for forest mapping using multi-sensor remote sensing techniques and scenario analysis for sustainable forest management. His research interest is in applications of Geospatial techniques to monitor terrestrial ecosystems including forest, agriculture, urban and disasters and disseminating the results to policy-makers. Currently, he is working on the synergistic use of remote sensing and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) techniques to monitor the environment more precisely to solve environmental issues from global to local scale.
Co-PI / Collaborators
Shilpi Mittal, INDIA
- Dr Shilpi Mittal is a Research Associate at the Indian Society for Applied Research & Development. She is a qualified architect, planner (specialising in housing) and received a doctorate in Quality of Life in Diverse Residential Neighbourhoods from the GD Goenka University. In the past, Dr Mittal has served in renowned research advisory & project management firms like IL&FS and Ansal API. She possesses practical experience of 4 years on consultancy and redevelopment projects in the private sector and over nine years of research and part-time teaching. During her professional career, she has participated and presented papers in national and international conferences, focusing on issues of sustainable habitat, quality of life in an increasingly transforming world. Dr Mittal has extensively contributed to publishing peer-reviewed journal papers, book chapters, etc., in prominent publications including Cities, IJUSD, Social Indicators Research, Springer Nature, Urban India, etc. She is a qualified GATE scholar in Architecture and Planning (2005) and received a visiting scholarship (2020) at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.
Co-PI / Collaborators
Eva Ayaragarnchanakul, THAILAND
- Eva Ayaragarnchanakul is a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics, Prince of Songkla University (Hatyai Campus), Songkhla, Thailand. She is currently on study leave as a PhD fellow in the chair of Sustainability Economics of Human Settlements at the Technical University Berlin, advised by Prof. Dr Felix Creutzig. She has a strong economics background, holding a Master of Economics (International program) and a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand. Her research interests include quantitative methods, urban economics, and regional science. She is now working on sustainable mobility in Bangkok, Thailand.