Participant Biographies

Boston Meeting on Sustainable Energy Futures in Developing Countries
July 13-15, 2016

Prof. Tri Ratna Bajracharya is the Dean of Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He is a permanent faculty member of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University. His field of specialization is energy systems, especially renewable energy technology. He did his Doctoral Degree in Engineering from Tribhuvan University in 2007 in Hydropower technology. Prof. Bajracharya is a well known expert in the field of energy and climate change and has published a number of research papers in international journals. He is also the Chief Editor of the Journal of the Institute of Engineering, ISSN 1810-3383.

Cynthia Barakatt has more than 30 years of experience in the fields of communications and the environment. She is interested in effective methods and strategies for making complex environmental science information easily accessible to non-scientific audiences. She has worked as a communications specialist for two state environmental agencies and a large international environmental consulting firm, and served as an administrator for a university-based environmental research and education center. She also served as the Director of Training for the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, a fellowship program for mid-career academic environmental scientists that focuses on improving outreach and communication skills to non-academic audiences, especially journalists and policymakers.  As Associate Director of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Cynthia oversees the development and implementation of the Center’s programs and activities, and directs the Center’s outreach efforts, publications program, and the Graduate Summer Fellows Program.

Laurence L. Delina is a Post-Doctoral Associate at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. He is also an Earth System Governance Research Fellow and a Research Associate at the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His work explores governance and institutional arrangements in the politics and policy of sustainability, focusing on sustainable energy transitions and rapid climate mitigation. His recent book, Strategies for Rapid Climate Mitigation (Routledge 2016), investigates what can be learned from wartime mobilization to achieve rapid deployment of sustainable energy technologies. As a Pardee Center Post-Doc, he is leading a research project on sustainable energy transitions in developing countries.

Delina held a visiting fellowship at Harvard Kennedy School in 2013 and 2016, consulted for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and the University of Manchester, and worked as a development banker at Land Bank of the Philippines. In 2017, he will assume a Rachel Carson Fellowship at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering  and a Master in Public Administration from Mindanao State University in General Santos City, Philippines, an MA in Development Studies from the University of Auckland, and a PhD from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He is a citizen of the Philippines.

Madhu C. Dutta-Koehler has over fifteen years of experience as an educator, researcher, and practitioner in the fields of urban planning, urban design and architecture. Her current scholarship focuses on climate change adaptation in urban South Asia and sustainability in the built environment. She has previously explored topics ranging from Colonial-era urban planning in India and modern-day U.S. “company towns,” to the hybridized and virtual milieus in the “new frontiers” of digital architecture.

Dutta-Koehler has her own international architectural practice specializing in residential design. In addition to her experience in India’s Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO), among others, she has also worked on various international design competitions and projects during her career. Her architectural designs and planning solutions have won awards from the Building and Social Housing Foundation (World Habitat Award), Indian Institute of Architects, American Institute of Architects, and U.S. Department of Energy, among others.

Dutta-Koehler has also held tenure- track academic appointments at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. She has also been an adjunct professor at MET since 2006, and received the Dean’s Citation for Teaching Excellence in 2011. Her teaching reflects a praxis-oriented pedagogy, through which she challenges students to apply classroom lessons to real-world issues in socio-cultural, economic, physical, and political contexts. She moreover draws upon two decades of eclectic artistic pursuits, including photography, graphic arts, and Indian classical dance, to inform her design sensibility.

Kevin P. Gallagher is a professor of global development policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, where he co-directs the Global Economic Governance Initiative and the Global Development Policy Program. He has authored six books: The China Triangle: Latin America’s China Boom and the Fate of the Washington Consensus, Ruling Capital: Emerging Markets and the Reregulation of Cross-Border Finance; The Clash of Globalizations: Essays on Trade and Development Policy; The Dragon in the Room: China and the Future of Latin American Industrialization (with Roberto Porzecanski); The Enclave Economy: Foreign Investment and Sustainable Development in Mexico’s Silicon Valley (with Lyuba Zarsky); and Free Trade and the Environment: Mexico, NAFTA, and Beyond. He is a chair of the Task Force on Development Banks and Sustainable Development and has served as an advisor to the Department of State and the U.S. EPA as well as to the UN Conference on Trade and Development and the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Kevin has been a visiting or adjunct professor at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (Johns Hopkins), the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts), El Colegio de Mexico (Mexico), Tsinghua University (China), and the Center for State and Society (Argentina). 

Ryan Hogarth is a researcher with the Overseas Development Institute with a focus on international development, energy access and climate change. He holds a DPhil/PhD from the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis, The Evolutionary Economic Geography of Climate Change, included research projects on the vulnerability of small island communities to climate change and low-carbon economic shifts in Brazil, including reduced deforestation and the diffusion of no-till agriculture and biofuels. Ryan also holds a MSc in international development from the London School of Economics. For his dissertation, he led a research project with the microfinance institution FINCA on the diffusion of household solar technology in rural Uganda. In 2011, Ryan worked as a researcher for Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment on a project to help the Government of Rwanda develop a National Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy.

Bharath Jairaj is a Senior Associate with the Energy Program and the Governance Centre at the World Resources Institute (WRI), and currently leads WRI India’s energy program. He also co-leads the Electricity Governance Initiative (EGI), which a WRI-Prayas Energy Group-led effort that focuses on governance in the electricity sector. WRI India’s energy program looks at holistic electricity planning, scaling clean energy and addressing energy poverty. Prior to WRI, Bharath has worked with WWF-India, Toxics Link and Consumer Action Group in India. He has worked on efforts to strengthen and enforce environmental laws, improve urban development, enhance citizen participation in governance and protect the rights of consumers in India and south Asia. Bharath has a law degree from the National Law School of India, a Masters in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore and a Masters in Law from the National University of Singapore.

Professor Anthony (Tony) C. Janetos has devoted his career to high-impact global change science and policy, earning international recognition for his scholarship and holding executive leadership positions at institutions including the U.S. EPA, NASA, World Resources Institute, and the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. He has written and spoken widely on the need to understand the scientific, environmental, economic, and policy linkages among the major global environmental issues, and he has served on several national and international study teams, including working as a co-chair of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. In addition to his research interests in the interaction of land systems with human needs and climate change, he has been an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Lead Author and Coordinating Lead Author, and has served on multiple National Research Council committees and boards. Prior to his appointment as Director of Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and Professor of Earth and Environment in 2013, Tony served as Director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland.

Joni Jupesta is an Energy Consultant at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). He served as a Policy Research and Analytics Programme Manager at the ASEAN Centre of Energy (2015-2016). He held a two-year post as an Environment Advisor at Sinar Mas Agribusiness in Indonesia (2013-2015), concurrently as a Visiting Research Fellow at United Nations University (UNU). Prior to that, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science-UNU (2011-2013) and a UNU-IAS Postdoctoral Fellow (2010-2011) at UNU in Tokyo, Japan. An Indonesian citizen, he obtained his Ph.D. in Management Science and Technology from Tohoku University, Japan in 2010. During his PhD, he focused on energy economics modelling and later broadened his research portfolio into sustainability science and policy area. He uses several sustainability assessment methodologies such as life cycle analysis, input output analysis, risk analysis, energy system analysis and spatial analysis for his transdisciplinary research on global environmental problems in Asia, such as forest-energy-food nexus in the context of Southeast Asia. He contributed two policy briefs to Rio+20: Green economy, and Institutional Framework towards Sustainable Development in Indonesian context. Furthermore, he has received several awards for his research work in innovation for sustainability: the Green Talent Award in 2012 from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Mitra Award in 2013 from the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Re-search (APN), and the BIARI Seed Grant Award 2014 from Brown University, USA.

Nalin Kulatilaka is Wing Tat Lee Family Professor of Management and a Professor of Finance at the Boston University, Questrom School of Business. His current research interests include real options, financing distributed energy investments, and contract design.

Professor Kulatilaka has published over 75 papers in top academic journals as well as influential managerial publications. His book, Real Options (HBS Press), has received wide acclaim.   He received the Association for Investment Management and Research’s Graham and Dodd Award in recognition of outstanding feature articles published in the Financial Analysts Journal, held the Bertil Danielsson Professor (2003) at the Stockholm School of Economics and Göteborg University, and the Tamkang Chair, at the Tamkang University, Taiwan (1997-1998). Professor Kulatilaka has addressed a wide range of executive audiences on issues of risk management and real options. He was the recipient of the 1998 John Russell award for excellence in executive teaching.

Professor Kulatilaka has co-founded several companies, most recently FirstFuel Software. He has served as a consultant/advisor to many major corporations and is on the Board of Directors of Assette and the Advisory Board of WattzOn.

Professor Kulatilaka holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (Imperial College, London), a S.M. in Decision and Control Engineering (Harvard University), and a Ph.D. in Economics/Finance (MIT).

Dr. Huang Liming is an Associate Professor at Jinan University in China. His research focuses on the policies and strategies for sustainable energy development. He has international research experience in this area and has achieved some research results. In 1999, he was awarded a distinguished fellowship for EU-China Higher Education Programme at Wageningen University in the Netherlands for doing research on renewable energy in China. During 2003-2004, he studied the issues of China-India Cooperation in the Renewable Energy Field at the University of Hong Kong after being awarded a fellowship for the China-India Project. In 2005, he gained a prestigious scholarship for the Canada-China Scholarly Exchange Program, and undertook research related to sustainable energy strategies in Canada at the University of Manitoba in Canada. In 2007, he was awarded a research fellowship to conduct research related to the issues of sustainable energy in China and India at the National University of Singapore.

Marta Marello has a background in economics and environmental policy with research and project management experience in the fields of energy efficiency, urban resiliency to coastal flooding, and the informal sector of waste management.

Her current research examines the demand side of energy in the context of public housing, which is an overlooked area when it comes to energy improvements in the residential sector. The multi-disciplinary project -born in 2012 as a partnership between Boston University and the Madison Park Development Corporation- uses engineering, finance, econometrics and social science to explore drivers of energy consumption. Current efforts focus on the design of behavioral nudges based on the psychological notion of intergenerational reciprocity that will motivate residents to increase their energy efficiency.

In the fall of 2015, Marello was invited to attend and present at the Climate KIC program hosted within COP21 in Paris, France. As the Boston winner of the #Climathon global competition, Marello and her team showcased their climate adaptation solution related to coastal flooding to a high-level audience of city, climate, and start-up specialists.

While in graduate school, Marello researched the informal sector of waste management in Latin America. Fieldwork in Brazil and Nicaragua in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) culminated in her Master thesis titled “Waste Pickers: Strategies to Enhance Livelihoods” and a policy brief published through the Global Economic Governance Initiative (GEGI) with co-author Ann Helwege.

Miquel Muñoz Cabré works on clean energy policy and finance. His research includes the effects of international trade agreements on national renewable energy policies. Miquel was a program officer at the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Prior to joining IRENA, Miquel was a researcher at Boston University’s Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, where he worked on sustainable development, renewable energy, climate change, and global environmental governance. He holds a Ph.D. on Public Policy, a master’s degree in International Relations and Environmental Policy and a master’s degree in Environmental Management and Ecological Economics, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Physics. Miquel has worked for research institutions including the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the Environmental Science and Technology Institute (ICTA), the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), the Worldwatch Institute, and the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT).

Deepti Nijhawan is Director of India Initiatives at Boston University’s Global Programs. She supports the VP/AP of Global Programs in playing a central role in Boston University’s India strategy by collaborating with faculty, developing relationships with quality partner institutions in India, and overseeing administrative components for the BU Foundation in India. She has organized and moderated academic panels, and also presented papers at several higher education conferences including the Universities of Rhode Island and Alberta, Canada.

An architect and urban planner by training, Deepti has extensive experience at the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Cambridge Housing Authority, on projects that have had an impact on the local urban landscape. She was at MIT for over seven years as Managing Director of the MIT-India Program, and an Instructor at the MIT-Edgerton Center where she taught a Freshman Seminar Course on the urban planning challenges of Indian cities.

Deepti graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with Master’s degrees in City Planning and Architecture, and earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree at the Delhi University School of Planning and Architecture. She is involved with several local non-profit organizations, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Visiting Committee for South Asia. Her awards include the Infinite Mile Award from MIT, an Outstanding Service Award from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and the MITHAS Chairperson Award.

Mr. Debajit Palit is Associate Director & Senior Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in India. He has around 20 years of experience working in the field of clean energy technologies, energy policy & regulation, and distributed generation & mini-grids on projects varying from resource assessment & energy planning to project implementation and technology adaptation to policy and regulation studies, monitoring, evaluation, impact assessment and capacity building. He has vast national and international experience, working in projects for UN organisations, Bilateral organisations, The World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and national governments. He has undertaken projects in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, and Philippines in Asia and Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Uganda in Africa. He has written widely on energy access and rural electrification issues, particularly related to South Asia, and have published more than 40 technical papers in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings and books. He has edited/authored books on Rural Electricity Distribution Franchisees, Mini-grids and Electricity Access. He is a member of ADB’s Energy for All Partnership’s Steering Committee and a sought-out speaker on energy access and mini-grids.

Marcio Giannini Pereira is a researcher at the Eletrobras Eletric Power Research Center (Cepel), invited Professor at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), a consultant and speaker in the area of sustainability and energy, and a member of the editorial council of Revista Brasileira de Tecnologia e Negocios em Petroleo (TN Petroleo). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) Economics Institute and an MA and PhD in energy planning from Coppe/UFRJ. He is also a Visiting Scholar at University of California, Berkeley’s Renewable & Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL). He has authored many articles published in specialist periodicals and papers for national and international events.

Dr. Worajit Setthapun is the Dean at the Asian Development College for Community Economy and Technology, Chiang Mai Rajabhat University, Thailand. Her role is to manage the Graduate Programs, Renewable Energy Research and Training Center, and the Chiang Mai World Green City. The green city is a living-laboratory that demonstrates green technology focusing on Renewable Energy, DC Microgrid, Smart Homes, Energy Efficient Buildings, Community Technology and Low Carbon Society. The green city is developed from over 30 research and development projects funded from Thailand Ministry of Energy, Thailand’s Energy Regulatory Commission, ONR-USA, National Research Council of Thailand, APEC, NEDO, YASTI, DFG and private sectors.

Dr. Setthapun currently has a joint position as the ASEAN-U.S. Science and Technology Fellows. She is working at the Ministry of Energy, Thailand on Thailand’s Decentralized Community Power Project. She is also the coordinator for Thailand Research Fund – Global Funding Agencies Alliance Program.

Louise Tait is a researcher at the Energy Research Centre (University of Cape Town) and works in the Energy Poverty and Development team. Her research explores issues related to energy and climate change policy, with a particular focus on energy issues at the urban scale; as well as extending basic energy access to poor households. Prior to working at the ERC, she worked for consultancies in both South Africa and the United Kingdom in the fields of economic development and environmental policy. Louise holds an MSc in Energy and Development Studies from the ERC.

Thanh Nguyen-Quang is co-founder of the Centre of Live and Learn for Environment and Community. After graduating with a BSc. on Environmental Science at Hanoi National University in 2004, Mr Nguyen-Quang worked for two years at an environmental education project in Halong Bay, before going to the UK for his Master of Science on Climate Change at the University of East Anglia. Returning to Vietnam at the end of 2008, he and his colleagues established the Centre of Live and Learn for Environment and Community, an active local non-governmental organization in the fields of education for sustainability, climate change, and sustainable energy. The Centre is currently an active member of the Vietnam Sustainable Energy Alliance, which works on both national and local level in Vietnam to promote alternative energy options to replace large hydropower and fossil fueled energy production. Mr Nguyen-Quang has special interests in issues related to anthropogenic environmental change, focusing on its implication on development, policy, and technology innovation. He believes that education is key for promoting, and encouraging innovation towards, sustainable lifestyles.

Mr. Hartley Walimwipi possesses a master’s degree in thermal fluids-mechanical engineering. He also holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Zambia. He is a certified United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Reviewer for Annex I countries. In addition to his academic qualifications, Mr. Walimwipi has undergone training in bio refinery at Centres of Excellence in Europe, which includes German Biomass Research Centre (DBFZ) and Biomass Logistics Technology (BLT) in Austria.

He is currently serving as Project Manager for the Low Emission Capacity Building project whose aim is to (i) establish a Sustainable GHG Inventory Management System for Zambia, (ii) development of Four Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in priority sectors and (iii) design a Measuring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system to support implementation and evaluation on NAMAs.

He also recently served as Country Programme Manager for Zambia in a project “Regional Roll out of the Renewable Assessment in the Southern African Development Community (SADC)” supported by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). He was also involved in the development of “Renewable Energy Strategy and Action Plan for SADC” and was responsible for Zambia and Namibia.

Mr. Walimwipi possesses working experience in issues related to sustainable development having recently been engaged as International Consultant by International Centre for Science and High Technology (ICS-UNIDO) in Italy where he served as key researcher in development of a “Decision Support Tool for Biofuels with focus on sustainable development.” He also has expertise in energy, environment and climate change (mitigation and adaptation) and sustainable development issues.

Ms. Dawa Zangmo is currently the Chief Engineer of the Research and Development Division, Department of Renewable Energy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs. She has been working with the Royal Government of Bhutan from 2001 with 15 plus years of service. She completed her Bachelor’s of Civil Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, India in 2000 and her Master’s in Environmental Planning and Management from UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands in 2006.

She is currently involved in the formulation of national energy efficiency and conservation policy of the country, updating Energy Data Directory 2015, research and promotion of new emerging renewable energy technologies, conducting awareness programs on energy efficiency and conservation measures, developing energy performance standards for equipment and appliances, etc.