Dr. Indrajit Pal, an associate professor in the Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation, and Management program at the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, brings over 21 years of expertise in disaster risk governance, hazard assessment, CBDRM, public health risk, and disaster resilience. With a distinguished background, he previously contributed to the Centre for Disaster Management at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, India. Dr. Pal holds a pivotal role as a Board member of the Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI), Japan, and serves as a Visiting Professor at Keio University. His advisory contributions extend to Disaster Risk Reduction for the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES). Dr. Pal is a prolific author and editor, with a portfolio of 15 books and over 180 peer-reviewed papers and chapters. Leading impactful projects in the Asia-Pacific region, his research focuses on risk characterization in Asian Delta communities and climate resilience in Lao PDR. Andy Large is a Professor of River Science in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University. Andy has over three decades of experience in researching river and wetland ecosystems, focusing on how extreme events and climate change affect catchment vulnerability and resilience. He develops novel approaches to quantifying social and physical effects of flooding and assesses how rivers benefit society though ecosystem services provision. Andy Large is Principal Investigator and Director of the UKRI GCRF Living Deltas Hub (2019-24) funded by UK Government through their Global Challenges Research Fund. Working in equitable partnership with delta communities, researchers, government ministries, international agencies, NGOs and with a focus on impacts of climate change on delta society and adaptation approaches, the Living Deltas Hub co-produces knowledge with communities and policymakers towards better resilience for three major mega-deltas in South and Southeast Asia. Andy’s work focuses on secure and equitable delta livelihood achievement and associated evidence building through research and stakeholder capacity strengthening at appropriate levels and with a natural-cultural heritage-sensitive approach. Mashfiqus Salehin is a professor of hydrology and water resources management at IWFM, BUET. During his 29 years of research and academic career, Prof Salehin has researched on a variety of technical and interdisciplinary issues, including large basin (GBM) scale hydrology, coastal hydrogeology and saline water intrusion, disaster vulnerability and risk analysis, simulations for climatic and socio-economic scenarios, climate change adaptation, socio-eco-technical approaches to water management, integrated analysis and modeling of physical and human systems, physical process-water security-livelihood dynamics, water security and poverty risk characterization, and transboundary water management. He has led and co-led several Bangladeshi research consortiums in large international collaborative projects (e.g., UKRI Living Deltas Hub; REACH: Improving Water Security for the Poor; Assessing Health, Livelihoods, Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation in Populous Deltas – ESPA Deltas; Deltas, vulnerabilities and climate change: Migration and Adaptation – DECCMA; Academic Alliance on Anticipatory Actions – 4As; and Transnational Policy Dialogue for Improved Water Governance of Brahmaputra River – Brahmaputra Dialogue). He has served in several government expert committees and institutional governing boards, linked to Bangladesh Water Development Board, Joint Rivers Commission- Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100, Support to the Implementation of the BDP (SIBDP), Sustainable Development Goal 6, and Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN). Dr. Hue Le is senior researcher and lecturer at Vietnam National University Central Institute for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (VNU-CRES) in Hanoi. Dr. Le’s research focuses on natural resource management, land tenure, and gender. Her scholarship examines the differentiating effects of macro policy and how social differentiation and power relations affect the way in which different classes of people use the resources and income that each class earns from forest-related resources. She has published numerous books and articles in international journals, including a recent book from Springer Press: ‘Competing for Land, Mangroves and Marine Resources in Coastal Vietnam’.
