SPEAKER BIOS

Azad Saha + More villagers

Community member – Organisation name

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Pritish

Fisheries officers – Block Development Office, District Ersama

Bibhu Datta Mishra

Accounts Officer – Block Development Office, District Ersama

Santosh Kumar Sahu

Accounts Officer – Block Development Office, District Ersama

Abha Mishra

Accounts Officer – UNDP

Kamal Kishore

Member – NDMA

Kamal Kishore has worked on disaster risk reduction and recovery issues for over 22 years at the local, national, regional and global levels. Prior to joining the National Disaster Management Authority, he worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for nearly 13 years in New Delhi, Geneva and New York. At UNDP headquarters he led global advocacy campaigns to address disaster risk reduction concerns in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 development agenda. As programme advisor, he also led the development of disaster and climate risk management related elements of the UNDP Strategic Plan (2014-17).

Anshu Sharma

Director – SEEDS India

Dr. Anshu Sharma is a co-founder of SEEDS. Over the last 26 years, Anshu has worked extensively on disaster risk and climate emergency issues. He has coordinated community-based action projects, trained practitioners, led inter-agency efforts and conducted research. He has also served as an advisor and consultant to numeroud Government, non-profit, UN and funding agencies, helping them to plan, implement and evaluate their programs.

Aurobindo Behera

Ex-SRC &MD OSDMA, Member Governing Board- OSDMA– OSDMA

Aurobindo Behera, a senior IAS officer, was previously the Managing Director of OSDMA (2001-03). He also held important positions in various Government Departments like Water Resources, Forest & Environment, Rural Development.

Rita Missal

Recovery Advisor – UNDP

Rita Missal is a Recovery Advisor and Policy Specialist with the UNDP where she was involved in the design, assessment and management of post crisis recovery, disaster risk reduction and climate change. She has experience in working with international affairs, policy analysis, coordinating intergovernmental and multilateral processes in post disaster recovery.

Rajendra Ratnoo

Ex-TNSDMA

Sekhar Kuriakose

Member Secretary, Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (ex-officio) &
Head (Scientist), State Emergency Operations Centre – Kerala State Disaster Management Authority

Sekhar Kuriakose is a Member Secretary at the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) and Head (Scientist) of the State Emergency Operations Centre. Prior to joining KSDMA he worked as a GIS specialist on several UNDP and World Bank projects. He is also a reviewr for several international journals including Jounral of Environmental Management, Natural Hazards, and Geomorphology and Landslides

Jyotiraj Patra

Project Manager – TROSA, Transboundary Rivers of South Asia – Oxfam Asia

Jyotiraj Patra is part of the Oxfam water governance team and leads the Transboundary Rivers of South Asia (TROSA) project. He is trained by Partnership Brokers Association (PBA) and has previously worked in knowledge brokering and advisory roles with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), International Development Research Center (IDRC) and the United Nations. He was previously a Response Manager for Cyclone Phailin with Christian Aid and Senior Program officer for DIsaster Risk Reduction with the Aga Khan Development Network.

Pradeep Nayak

Chief General Manager – OSDMA

Vanessa Peters

Activist – IRCUDC, Chennai

Vanessa Peters is a policy researcher and the founder of Information and Resource Centre for Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC). Through her policy research and social audits, Vanessa has been striving to bring about pro-poor policies by the government of Tamil Nadu. Vanessa has been instrumental in the designing and implementation of ‘Shelter for Urban Homeless\ for the Greater Chennai Corporation. Presently, she is a member of the state-level committee to monitor the functioning of the programme and also serves on the state-level Shelter Advisory Committee.

Rohit Jigyasu

Rohit Jigyasu is a conservation architect and risk management professional from India, currently working at ICCROM; an intergovernmental organized dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage as Project Manager on Urban Heritage, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management.

Nityanand Jayaraman

Vettiver Collective

Nityanand Jayaraman is a writer and researcher based in Chennai. He investigates and reports on corporate abuses of environment and human rights, and is part of an anti-corporate collective called Vettiver Koottamaippu (Collective).

Sneha Krishnan

OP Jindal University

Dr. Sneha Krishnan is trained in psychology, environmental engineering and disaster management, with her multi-disciplinary interests ranging from environmental and public health, women’s empowerment, humanitarian conflicts and adaptation. She has worked on a wide range of topics in Asia-Pacific.

Her research expertise includes working in Odisha on a randomised controlled trial on agriculture and nutrition as a Research Fellow at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Shalini Sharma

Allan Lavell

Allan Lavell was the co- principal investigator for the ‘Reducing Relocation Risk in Urban Areas’ project that this book is based on. He has a BSc from UCL and List of contributors xi MSc and PhD in geography from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a founding member of the Latin American Network for the Social Study of Disaster Prevention (LA RED). He has spoken at more than 150 international conferences in 47 countries, written and published over 95 specialised items on disaster risk management and undertaken more than 90 consultancy missions in 32 different countries, for more than 20 international agencies. He was awarded the 2015 UN Sasakawa Award for contributions to disaster risk management under the theme ‘Forging the Future’. His present work involves technical support for the UNDRR regional assessment report on disaster risk in Latin America and the Caribbean, and work on systemic risk governance for the future and methodologies for evaluating COVID- 19 response in Uruguay. He is now retired but was formerly employed between 1992 and 2020 for the Latin American Social Science Faculty.

Cassidy Johnson

Cassidy Johnson is Professor of Urbanism and Disaster Risk Reduction at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL. She was principal investigator on the ‘Reducing Relocation Risk in Urban Areas’ project that this book is based on. Her academic interests are linked by a commitment to improving the quality of life and livelihoods of low- income groups living in urban areas in the global South. Her research contributes to the area of disaster risk reduction and disaster recovery and to the role of local governments and civil society in this – and to integrating an understanding of disaster risk into development. This encompasses issues of urban planning, housing quality, building code regulations, informal settlements (and upgrading) and evictions. Her work engages internationally with policymakers as well as with local communities and she has worked in countries across Asia and Africa, including Turkey, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi.

Emily Wilkinson

Emily Wilkinson is a senior research fellow in the Overseas Development Institute’s Risk and Resilience Programme and knowledge exchange fellow of the Global Risks and Resilience Programme. She currently holds two additional positions in the Caribbean: as chief scientific adviser to the Climate Resilience Execution Agency for Dominica and co- director of the Caribbean Resilience and Recovery Knowledge Network. Emily is an expert in disaster and climate risk management, with interests in public policy, governance frameworks and innovative financing solutions for resilient development in small- island developing states. She has a PhD in human geography from UCL and has published more than 50 articles, reports and book chapters on disasters, climate change and resilience.

Amir Bazaz

Amir Bazaz is Senior Lead – Practice at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements, where he works on issues at the intersection of economics, climate change mitigation and sustainable development. He has substantial experience of working with various top- down and bottom- up economy– energy– environment modelling
frameworks. His current research interests are low- carbon societies and infrastructure, climate change adaptation and urban– climate change linkages. He started his career in the manufacturing industry, working across functional responsibilities of projects, production planning/ control and engineering. He has
been the expert consultant to India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests and for the National Communication to the UNFCCC project, and has taught courses in development and environmental economics.

Shuaib Lwasa

Elizabeth Mansilla

Angel Chavez

Anthony Oliver-Smith

Elizabeth Ferris

Yves Cabannes

Gautam Bhan

Malini Battacharjee

Azim Premji University

Malini is a faculty at the Azim Premji University. Her research interests revolve around issues of religious identity, ethnicity and political conflict and the intersections emerging between religion and development. She started her career at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and subsequently worked in a conflict resolution firm where she was involved in conducting research on the Kandhamal riots of 2008 in Odisha between Hindus and Christians and a CAO World Bank project on ‘Local Stakeholder perception study for IFC funded projects’ in the state of Gujarat.

Lisa Bornstein

Associate Professor – McGill University

Lisa Bornstein is an Associate Professor with the School of Urban Planning at the McGill Univeristy. Her areas of research include International Planning, economic development, environmental policy and planning, institutions and governance, international aid in South Africa, Regional Planning in Mozambique and Metropolitan planning reform in South Africa

Sibi Arasu

Journalist – The Wire (Ex Word Lab)

Sibi Arasu is an independent journalist who writes on environment, science, and climate change. Sibi is the recipeint of several awards in environmental journalism including, Red Ink Awars 2019 (Special mention, Environment category), Asian Environmental Journalism Award 2019 (Singapore Environment Council); Prem Bhatia Environmental Journalism Award 2018; All India Environmental Journalism Award 2014 (GIZ)

Nidhi Jamwal

Journalist, Deputy Managing Director – Gaon Connection

Nidhi Jamwal is the Deputy Managing Editor at the Gaon Connection – India’s largest bilingual rural media platform. She has over 20 years of experiece in environment and development journalism. Previously she has worked as a Senior Correspondent for 12 years with Down to Earth – India’s science and environment fortnightly. She has also freelanced as an independent environment and development journalist with several publications that include The Wire, Scroll.in, DNA, India Climate Dialogue, Village Square etc.

Mahima Jain

Science Writer/Journalist

Subodh Patnaik

Theater Director – Natya Chetna

Subodh Patnaik is a theatre director and playwright from Odisha. He is the founder of Bhubaneswar-based theatre group Natya Chetana and theatre village ‘Natya Grama’ .Patnaik is the only theatre personality from Odisha to tour all the continents. His play “Sindhi” was premiered on 9 June 2016 in Kalikasthan, Achham at Nepal.”Ramleela” a mythological play inspired by Ramayana performed with his group at Bhanja Kala mandap, Bhubaneswar.

R.V.Ramani

Filmmaker

RV Ramani is one of the leading documentary filmmakers in India, who has established a unique style of his own, making independent impressionistic documentaries, which has found recognition both in India and abroad. He has traveled widely with his films and his films and Retrospectives have been presented in many International Film Festivals. He regularly conducts filmmaking workshops at many Institutions and is a Visiting Professor at the Ambedkar University Delhi. Presently he lives in Chennai and Delhi, working on many feature documentaries

Lekshmi menon

social entrepreneur (started chekutty dolls)

Lakshmi N. Menon is a designer and social entrepreneur. She runs the organization “Pure Living” in Cochin dedicated to finding sustainable livelihood solutions and also in propogating awareness in society about the importance of green living.

Post 2018 floods in Kerala, she along with her colleagues came up with Chendamangalam Kutty aka Chekutty dolls made from garments that were soiled during the floods giving handloom weavers new means to livelihoods. More recently, in Kochi, she developed Shayya – a mattress made from waste materials to help Covid centers with mattress shortages. This initiative also provided employment oppportunity for women.

Mary Vattamattam

Director – Timbuktu Collective

Mary is Chairperson at Timbaktu Collective – a registered Not-for-Profit organization initiated in 1990, working for sustainable development in the drought prone Anantapur district of Andhra pradesh, India. She has made pioneering contributions towards women’s empowerment, child rights, alternative education, and disability rights in Srikakulam and Anantapuramu districts over the last four decades. She has promoted four women’s thrift and credit cooperatives and their federation, which now has a membership over 22,000. She set up the ‘Nature School’ and has advanced the concept of ‘Ecological Child Rights’ in the region. As Director – Programmes, Timbaktu, Mary provides overall guidance to all the programmes of the Collective.

Divya Chandrasekhar

Associate Professor – University of Utah

Divya Chandrasekhar is an Associate Professor in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah with expertise in community recovery from disasters. Her research has examined post-disaster community participation and capacity building, networking and coordination among recovery institutions, and disaster recovery policy in South and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and the US

Fr. Bijoy Thomas Karukappally

Director – Radio Maattoli (community radio in wayanad)

Fr. Bijo Thomas is the Station Director at Radio Mattoli (90.4 FM) – a community Radio Service (CRS) situated in Wayanad District of Kerala State. Community Radio service focuses on different communities living within its transmission zone. It is aimed at providing a platform for marginal sections to express themselves socially, culturally and spiritually.

Annie George

Founder – BEDROC

Annie George is a Rural Development Professional specializing in Disaster Management and Disaster Risk Reduction. She is the CEO and Founder of BEDROC (Building and Enabling Disaster Resilience of Coastal Communities) a successor to the Nagapattinam NGO Co-ordination and Resource Center (NCRC) which was a multi-stakeholder co-ordination and program implementation platform set up after the 2004 Indian ocean Tsunami. Prior to this, she was a State Coordinator and capacity building consultant with UNDP. She was also a COnsortium Manager with Christian Aid during the Rohingya Crisis.

Nirmal Panda

Gram Vikaas

Nirmal Kumar Panda is Project Manager at Gram Vikas. He Managed the Odisha Disaster Recovery Project (ODRP) aimed to assist Phailin-affected communities of Ganjam and Khordha districts to reduce their vulnerability through the construction of pucca houses with disaster resilient features.

Maxmillan Martin

Max Martin is a geographer focusing on climate, extreme weather and people’s responses. He is a research fellow in the department of anthropology, and visiting researcher at the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research, Cochin. His current research explores ways to co-produce marine weather forecasts with artisanal fishers and forecasters in southwestern India.

Alexandra Woodall

Alex Woodall is a Lecturer in Arts Management at Sheffield University Management School, where she teaches on the MSc in Creative and Cultural Industries. Her research is derived from extensive professional practice working in museums and art galleries, and as well as object-focussed research, she has a particular interest in how these creative and cultural industries function to support wellbeing. For 15 years, she managed public programmes, exhibitions, learning and interpretation projects for museum and galleries, including at Museums Sheffield, Manchester Art Gallery and the Kettle’s Yard at the University of Cambridge.