Sierin Lim is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and the Associate Dean for Global Partnerships at the Graduate College, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore. She earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and did a postdoc at University of California Irvine. She is the founder of the Biomedical Engineering Society (Singapore) Student Chapter and Women@NTU Initiatives. She has received several awards including the Asia Pacific Networking Research Fellowship from the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (2012), L’Oréal-UNESCO Singapore for Women in Science National Fellowships (2013), Tan Chin Tuan Fellowship for Exchange in Engineering (2016), Outstanding Woman in Biomedical Engineering Venus International Women Awards (2019).

Prof. Lallemant joined the NTU faculty from Stanford University, where he was a researcher and founder of the Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative. He holds a PhD from Stanford University (2015), master’s degree from UC Berkeley (2010) and a bachelor’s degree from MIT (2007). His academic background is in earthquake sciences and engineering, predictive modeling, geostatistics, reliability analysis and others, used to conduct novel and impactful research to promote resilient societies.

Prof. Lallemant is also active in post-disaster response and recovery, which forms the basis for his research on post-disaster assessment and community resilience. He worked for two years in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake and has been involved with the response and recovery following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and 2015 earthquake in Nepal. He regularly consults for the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR).

His awards include the 2018 National Research Foundation Fellowship ($3M grant for 5-year research), the Shah Family Fellowship on Catastrophic Risk, the John A. Blume Fellowship in Earthquake Engineering, the Development Impact Award and the World Bank Vice Presidential Unit Award (for work conducted in Haiti).

David Wardle works as the Smithsonian Professor of Forest Ecology at the NTU, and also holds adjunct positions with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and with the University of Canterbury and Landcare Research in New Zealand.

He has authored two books on aboveground-belowground linkages (published by Princeton University Press in 2002 and Oxford University Press in 2010), and around 340 peer-reviewed journal articles of which around 25 have appeared in Science and Nature. He serves or has served on over ten editorial boards, including for Science, Ecology and Ecology Letters. He has also been recognized as a highly cited scientist (in both the ‘old’ 2001 and ‘new’ 2014, 2015, 2016 lists) and as among the world’s 20 most cited scientists in ecology and environmental sciences. Further, he has supervised 23 postdoctoral researchers and 17 PhD students, most of which have actively published in major journals under his supervision (including in Nature and Science), most of which are still active in science and/or policy, and several of which hold positions as university faculty or as research scientists. Wardle has been the recipient of several scientific awards and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and a Wallenberg Scholar.

Topic: Reimagining Energy and Reinventing bp: Sustainability at the Heart

Kirsty Salmon, Ph.D. is the VP for advanced bio & physical sciences for low carbon energy at bp. Kirsty has a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from McGill University, completed postdoctoral work at UCLA and held a research faculty position at UC Irvine where she ran the Computational Biology Research Lab focused on research on the cusp of academia and industry. Kirsty left academia in 2008 to become the Director of Renewable Fuels for a start-up company (Verdezyne) and in 2011 joined bp as its Head of Research for bp Biofuels. In 2015 she became the director of the newly formed bp Biosciences Centre in San Diego, and in 2018, Kirsty led the study on what the circular economy means for bp which led to Aim 19 in bp’s new sustainability frame. Currently, Kirsty is responsible for a new team in bp that is focused on sustainable, early-stage low carbon technology development and fundamental science research for the company.

Topic: Environment, Water, and Sustainability – Story from Singapore and beyond

Shane Snyder is a Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and is the Executive Director of the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Professor Snyder also maintains his affiliation with the College of Engineering at the University of Arizona. He has also worked as a Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore (2011-2017).

For over 20 years, Shane’s research has focused on the identification, fate, and health relevance of emerging water pollutants. He has been invited to brief the Congress of the United States and served on the national expert panels , including the EPA’s Science Advisory Board drinking water committee and the US EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors Sustainable Water committee. He is a Fellow of the International Water Association and a member of the World Health Organization’s Drinking Water Advisory Panel. He was also a member of the US National Academy of Science’s National Research Council Committee on Water Reuse and served on the WHO’s guiding committee on development of potable reuse guidelines.

Today, Shane dedicates much of his time advancing safe water and sanitation within underserved communities in South and Southeast Asia. The philanthropic team led by Shane has benefited more than two million people by translating academic research into practical environmental solutions. He is passionate in advancing sustainable water technologies to protect both public and environmental health.

Christina Schönleber, Senior Director, Policy and Research Programs at the Association of Pacific Rim Universities has extensive expertise in translating research to impact. She holds responsibilities for developing and growing APRU’s strategic policy impact to address pressing regional challenges through the association’s key program areas working closely with leading scientists and policy makers in the Asia Pacific. Christina joined APRU from the innovation and enterprise leadership of the Royal College of Art and the University of Kent. As Head of Knowledge Exchange at the RCA in London, she set up and implementing the college’s strategic capabilities in applying latest knowledge and expertise to solve societal, environmental an economic issues. She led the development and submission of the RCA’s first major Innovate UK application gaining funding for multi stakeholder/ multi year collaboration on driverless vehicles and set up new strategic partnerships with major international corporations such as Huawei and Tata Consultancy Services. At the University of Kent, Christina led the university’s strategic enterprise development in key areas of science and social science. In this role, she set up the university’s first student start up and enterprise schemes, forged new cross disciplinary research collaborations with key partners in the security and information sectors and developed lasting strategic partnerships with government and industry. Following this she worked as a business development consultant in Hong Kong, developing Sino-German business links.

Yekang Ko is an Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on environmental planning, specialized in urban energy planning, green infrastructure, and physical planning and design for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Her teaching and professional projects are based on community service learning and outreach, collaborating with governments, non-profits, professionals and educators locally and internationally. Before joining UO, Yekang taught at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Texas at Arlington where she was selected as the 2013 Community Service Learning Faculty Fellow and the 2016 Professor of the Year award for Excellence in Higher Education. Yekang received her Ph.D. in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning from UC Berkeley, Masters of Area Studies (Asia-Pacific Region) from the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies at Kyung Hee University and B.S. in Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering from Korea University. Email: [email protected] News Yekang Ko profiled in Oregon Quarterly Conflict of Greens, Oregon Quarterly, July 6, 2018 Selected Publications Ko, Y., Jang, K., and Radke, J.D. 2017. Toward a solar city: Trade-offs between on-site solar energy potential and vehicle energy consumption in San Francisco, California, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation (In Press) Adil, A.M. and Ko, Y. 2016. Socio-technical evolution of Decentralized Energy Systems: A critical review and implications for urban planning and policy. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews 57: 1025–1037. Lee, J., Ko, Y., and McPherson, E.G. 2016. The feasibility of remotely sensed data to estimate urban tree dimensions and biomass, Urban Forestry and Urban Greening 16: 208-220. Ko, Y., Lee, J., McPherson, E.G., and Roman, L.A. 2015. Long-term monitoring of Sacramento Shade program trees: tree survival, growth, and energy-saving performance. Landscape and Urban Planning 143:183–191. Ko, Y., Lee, J., McPherson, E.G., and Roman, L.A. 2015. Factors affecting long-term mortality for residential shade trees: Evidence from Sacramento, CA. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening 14: 500–507. Ko. Y. 2014. The effect of urban trees on residential solar energy potential. Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture 42(1): 41-49. Ko, Y. and Radke, J.D. 2014. The effect of urban forms on residential cooling energy use in Sacramento, California. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 41(4) 573 – 593. Ko, Y. 2013. Urban form and residential energy use: a review of design principles and research findings. Journal of Planning Literature 28(4): 327 – 351. Yoon, J. and Ko, Y. 2013. STS Student Learning Model: an effective approach to identifying environmental problems and solutions. The International Journal of Science in Society 4(2):133-147. Ko, Y., Schubert, D.K., and Hester, R.T. 2011. A conflict of greens: green development versus habitat preservation; the case of Incheon, South Korea. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 53: 3, 3- 17.

Education

PhD (City and Regional Planning), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2007)
MRP (City and Regional Planning), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2001)
MS (Building Science), Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (1998)
BArch (Architecture) Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, (1995)

Summary of Interests

Environment-people relationship—Using residential satisfaction and perception to evaluate the impacts of land use patterns and urban design characteristics on residents’ wellbeing;
Environment-behavior relationship—Understanding the impacts of the built environment on people’s behavior, especially physical activities and children’s school travel;
Understanding how place-making knowledge and practices can be transferrable between different cultures and countries.

Topic: Food Valorization– The Singapore Way

Wlliam Chen is Michael Fam Endowed Chair Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received his university education (from BSc to DSc) from Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. Prof. Chen joined Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU) in 2002. He attended the Food System Leadership Institute in the US. Prof. Chen is the Director of Food Science & Technology Programme. He is also Director of Singapore Agrifood Innovation Lab (SAIL@NTU), Co-Director of NTU Future Ready Food Safety Hub (FRESH@NTU), and Director of F&N-NTU Joint Innovation Lab. Prof. Chen’s food tech innovations and opinions on food security have been featured in Nature and The World Economic Forum, and extensively covered by local and international media. The ‘Going Green’ programme by CNN in 2019 described Professor Chen as a Game-Changing Leader in the green revolution of the food system. Professor Chen is advisor/consultant to government agencies, The World Health Organization, The Asian Development Bank, The Good Food Institute APAC, food industry, and overseas universities on matters related to food technology and food security.

Topic: Citizenship in P&G

Clint Navales is the Vice President of Communications (Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa) of P&G. He graduated with a degree in Environmental Science from Ateneo de Manila University, Philipines. He started his career in P&G in 1998 as Global Product Stewardship Manager and advanced through the communications leadership ladder to the Vice President in 2019. Clint has many practices which includes product safety, regulatory affairs, environmental sustainability, gender equality, consumer relations, corporate social responsibility, external stakeholder & media relations, and brand & corporate communications.

Professor Subodh Mhaisalkar is the Associate Vice President (Strategy & Partnerships) and Professor in the School of Materials Science & Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Subodh is also the Executive Director of the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N), a pan-University multidisciplinary research institute for innovative energy solutions. Prior to joining NTU in 2001, Subodh has over 10 years of research and engineering experience in the microelectronics industry where he held senior managerial positions at STATS Singapore, National Semiconductor, and SIMTech.

Prof Subodh’s main areas of research comprise perovskite solar cells, light emitting devices, and printable electronics. Common to all these projects are methods of solution processing of semiconductors, fundamental device physics studies, and device integration. For his work in Organic Thin Film Transistors, Subodh and his team won the IEEE 2008 George E. Smith Award for their work in printable electronics. Subodh is also the recipient of Ohio State University’s Professional Achievement Award 2012, the Nanyang Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in 2012, and Singapore National Day Award 2014 – The Public Administration Medal (Silver), and the IIT-Bombay Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2018.

Seung Jin Kim B. Sc., B. Eng., PhD. Originally born in Seoul, Korea, my family migrated to Sydney Australia in 1993. I completed my secondary and tertiary education in Australia and proceeded to complete PhD in the Life Cycle Engineering field at the University of New South Wales. During the research, I investigated the impact of changing technologies on product functionality and resulting economic and environmental impacts throughout the whole product life cycle to develop a more pragmatic design assessment method.

In 2014, I joined Suez Australia (a global Waste management and Water treatment services company) working in both technical and operational roles in Municipal Solid Waste processing including plastics and project delivery in waste processing infrastructure. I had a brief break from the waste industry in 2017-18 while working in an Industrial IoT start-up for digitisation projects in the manufacturing sector. Having seen where the actual wastes end up and the current state-of-art in waste processing, I am now more passionate about solving the end-of-life issues of modern-day lifestyle.

Dr. Yuan is a Research Professor at Korea University in Seoul, South Korea. His academic background covers greenhouse gas adsorption and separation, low carbon technology, waste management, engineered biochar, life-cycle sustainable assessment, etc. He has published over 50 refereed journal articles including Nat. Rev. Earth Environ., Matter, Environ. Sci. Technol., Small, Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev., Green Chem. Dr. Yuan has registered 8 Korea domestic patents and achieved one technology transfer (KR10-2197821). He is also active in servicing as the Outside Director of Sun Brand Industrial Inc. from 2020 and the Key Academic Committee Member of International Cooperation Research Centre of Carbon Capture in Ultra-low Energy-consumption, Tianjin, China from 2018. Moreover, he has been invited as the Keynote/Invited Speaker for over 10 international conferences. He is also servicing as guest editors (Environmental Pollution, Biomass & Bioenergy, etc.), editorial members (Biochar, Carbon Research, etc.)

Professor Xin CHANG is a Professor of Finance and Associate Dean (Research) at Nanyang Business School. His research primarily focuses on corporate finance, particularly on capital structure, corporate innovation, green finance, and corporate social/environmental responsibility. He has published extensively in top-tier business journals such as the Journal of Finance. His research findings were used by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the U.S. to support the new regulation rules and gained media coverage in Business Week, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and many others. Before returning to NTU in 2017, he held tenured positions as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne and a University Reader and John Maynard Keynes Fellow in Financial Economics at the University of Cambridge. Currently, he is also an associate editor for the International Review of Finance and Asia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies. More information about Professor Chang can be found here: https://personal.ntu.edu.sg/changxin/.

Alex Yan is a professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Nanyang Technological University. He is a Cluster Director for Energy Storage at Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N). Dr. Yan obtained his BA from Materials Science and Engineering Department of Nanjing University, China, in 1999. He finished his PhD from Materials Science and Engineering Department of State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2004. He joined the Materials Science and Engineering Department of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a postdoctoral research associate until joining Nanyang Technological University in 2007. His research interests include semiconductor nanocrystals, magnetic nanoparticle assembly, thermoelectric materials.

Robert convenes the Human Ecology program at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University. He is also visiting Professor at the College of Human Ecology, University of the Philippines Los Baños. His current research centres on the application of dynamic systems thinking to problems in Human Ecology and Sustainability Science more generally. He has been involved in a range of projects that focus on global food systems. He is the Food and Nutrition Security working group leader for the Sustainable Cities and Landscape hub of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities. He is also involved with a range of activities around Education for Sustainability, and is particularly interested in the potential contribution of online modules to enhance international teaching and learning collaborations, particularly in partnership with regional developing nations.

Robert is President Emeritus of the international Society for Human Ecology (SHE). He is also Chair of the Human Ecology Section of the Ecological Society of America (ESA). He is editor of the journal Human Ecology Review. He is co-Chair of the ANU Humanities and Social Sciences Delegated Ethics Review Committee (DERC). He has also been academic advisor to Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability (ACTS). He has been awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (then ‘Carrick’) citation forOutstanding Contribution to Student Learning. With Barry Newell, he is author of Understanding Human Ecology published by Routledge (2105).

I teach courses in sustainable design, environmental science as well as water and sanitation. My primary research focuses are on planning, designing, and implementing sustainable water and sanitation (WASH) services in low- and middle-income countries. I helped to co-found and currently lead the “re.source” sanitation research initiative, originally funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Re.source is focused on exploring extremely low-cost, resource recovery and sanitation solutions. (Integrated Mobile Sanitation Solutions in Peri-urban Settings: Haiti, re.source).

I have conducted extensive research on the topics of non-networked water supply and sanitation in Mozambique and Haiti. Where I worked on a large rural water improvement impact evaluation in Nampula, Mozambique. I specifically studies the caloric energy women expend when fetching water. My primary research topics include 1) water, energy, and resource recovery from waste streams; 2) sustainable delivery of water services in rural and urban settings; 3) development and analysis of entrepreneurial-based sanitation service delivery models and 4) informal urbanization.

I am the current Chair of the Container-Based Sanitation Alliance. The CBS Alliance was formed in November of 2016. It is a coalition of CBS practitioners around the world with extensive experience in developing and providing CBS services. The goal of the Alliance is to formalize the CBS approach, help sanitation services to reach scale, and achieve sustainable impact in urban areas around the world. Container-Based Sanitation was officially added to the list of improved sanitation options by Joint Monitoring Programme in 2019. Find out more at cbsa.global.

I am also a co-founder of the Landscape for Humanity initiative at the University of Oregon. L4H works with landscape as the fundamental framework for creating spatial change that supports social and environmental justice. L4H does this through design, research and real-world projects.

Dr. Chingwen Cheng is Program Head and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, and Environmental Design at The Design School, Arizona State University. Dr. Cheng is dedicated to Climate Justice Design integrating nature-based solutions in the meaningful participatory planning and design process to enhance community resilience and address environmental and climate justice. She directs Hydro-GI Lab to investigate the social-ecological landscape performance of urban water systems design through hydrological modeling, spatial analysis, and field experiments. Dr. Cheng has developed the Climate Justicescape framework that aims to identify priorities for green infrastructure strategies in communities and avoid nature-based solutions investment to further perpetuate systemic injustice. Dr. Cheng continues to serve on multiple professional organizations including ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) Climate Actions Committee and CELA (Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture) President-Elect to advocate for climate justice and actions in policies, practices, and education.

Director, APRU Sustainable Waste Management Program Director, Korea Biochar Research Center Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea Dr. Ok is a full professor and global research director of Korea University, Seoul, Korea. He has published over 900 research papers and books, 92 of which have been ranked as Web of Science ESI top papers (90 have been selected as “Highly Cited Papers” (HCPs), and two as “Hot Papers”). He has been a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher (HCR) since 2018 in Cross Field, Environment and Ecology, and Engineering. In 2019, he became the first Korean to be selected as an HCR in the field of Environment and Ecology. Again in 2021, he became the first Korean HCR in two fields: Environment and Ecology, and Engineering. He is working at the vanguard of global efforts to develop sustainable waste management strategies and technologies to address the rising crisis in electronic and plastic waste, and pollution of soil and air with particulate matter. Dr. Ok has also served in a number of positions worldwide including, as an honorary professor at the University of Queensland (Australia), a visiting professor at Tsinghua University (China), an adjunct professor at the University of Wuppertal (Germany), and a guest professor at Ghent University (Belgium). He maintains a worldwide professional network by serving as a Co-Editor-in-Chief of Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, an Editor of Environmental Pollution, a member of the editorial advisory board of Environmental Science & Technology, and an editorial board member of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Chemical Engineering Journal, and Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, and several other top journals. He currently serves as the Director of the Sustainable Waste Management Program for the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) and the Co-President of the International ESG Association. Moreover, he has served on the Scientific Organizing Committee of P4G Nature Forum: Climate Change and Biodiversity, and Nature Forum: Plastics and Sustainability. Dr. Ok has also served as the chairman of numerous major conferences such as Engineering Sustainable Development series (ESD series), organized by the APRU and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). In 2021, Dr. Ok hosted the first Nature conference among South Korean universities in Seoul on waste management and valorization for a sustainable future together with Chief Editors of Nature Sustainability (Dr. Monica Contestabile), Nature Electronics (Dr. Owain Vaughan), and Nature Nanotechnology (Dr. Fabio Pulizzi). Prof. Ok will host the first Nature Forum on Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) for Global Sustainability: the “E” Pillar for Sustainable Business.

Topic: Dell’s Sustainability Strategy

Amit Midha is a global strategic business leader with significant Asia experience. Amit has built and transformed businesses in various roles in China, US, India, and Singapore. He is well versed in multiple cultures and has established strong global relationships. He is a technologist at heart with deep expertise in Datacenter, Enterprise Software, Edge, and Data Science. Amit Midha is responsible for Dell’s growth in the Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) region, overseeing a multibillion- dollar business spanning 40+ countries with a multi-cultural workforce. Amit is passionately focused on developing strong talent and technology leadership to support the digital transformation journey for Dell’s customers and partners. Amit also leads Dell Technologies’ Digital Cities business globally, driving the transformation of cities and engagement with governments and corporations.