ISTPP has named five members to its Fellows program—Dr. Bassel Daher, Dr. Mathew Kurian, Dr. Sara Meerow, Dr. Ren Mu, and Dr. Youlang Zhang
Dr. Daher is a Research Associate in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University. Dr. Daher is interested in bridging physical and social science to develop analytics that catalyze an evidence-based, multi-stakeholder dialogue around trade-offs associated with technological, policy, and social interventions to address the interconnected water, energy, and food security challenges.
Dr. Kurian is an Academic Officer for the United Nations University—FLORES in Dresden, Germany, where he leads the Capacity Development and Governance Unit. His research interests are results-based financing, adaptive natural resources management, and data visualization processes for evidence-based decision making. Some of Dr. Kurian’s work focuses on water reuse policies in relation to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Among Dr. Kurian’s accomplishments at UNU was the launch of the Nexus Observatory, an online platform to further integrative modelling of water, energy, and food interactions to address global environmental risk based on data sharing agreements with UN member states.
Dr. Meerow is an Assistant Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on improving urban resilience in the face of climate change and other social and environmental hazards. Dr. Meerow combines more conceptual studies of resilience with empirical research on the complexities of urban resilience, green infrastructure, and climate change adaptation planning in a range of cities.
Dr. Mu’s research is in the empirical microeconomics area of development economics. Her research goal is to enhance the understanding of decision making of households and individuals in the developing world and to provide evidence for designing and implementing sound public policies. Dr. Mu’s studies mainly focus on China and can be grouped into four sets of topics: (1) the public opinions of certain socioeconomic issues—for example, inequality and environmental problems; (2) the determinants and impacts of human capital outcomes; (3) the opportunities for and obstacles to rural-urban migration and the migration impacts on rural communities and households; and (4) the effectiveness and allocations of public investments.
Dr. Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Administration and Policy at Renmin University of China. His research focuses on bureaucratic politics, policy process, and collaborative governance. Dr. Zhang has empirically examined these topics in the areas of education, lobbying, environmental policy, and administrative reform.
