Speakers' Bios

• Zoubida Allaoua

  Senior Regional Adviser, East Asia and Pacific Region, World Bank

  Zoubida has over 20 years’ experience with the World Bank, since she joined in 1988 through the Young Professionals Program. She has since then held various positions as Economist covering West Africa, lead Economist on India and Pakistan. In 2002, she was appointed Sector Manager, Private and Financial Sector Development for the Middle East and North Africa (MNA) Region, where she led major lending operations on banking reforms and housing finance and major analytical work, including the Flagship report on Private Sector Development in MNA: From Privilege to Competition. In May 2009, she was appointed Director for Urban and Disaster Risk Management Department (UDR), which is the global practice leading the Bank's agenda on Sustainable Urbanization, City services, Resilience and Disaster Risk Management. During her leadership, she managed major research on managing urbanization and mainstreaming disaster and climate risks for sustainable development strategies. In December 2013, Zoubida was appointed Acting Vice President for the Sustainable Development Network (SDN), a responsibility which she carried in addition to Managing the Urban and Disaster Risk Management Department, and also serving as Acting Director of Strategy and Operations for SDN. In this role, she led the Bank’s largest network which had an active current portfolio under implementation of US$134 billion, accounting for 69 percent of total World Bank’s portfolio. In July 2014, Zoubida was appointed Senior Regional Advisor to the East Asia and Pacific Region Vice Presidency.

• Margaret Arnold

  Senior Social Development Specialist – Urban, Rural & Social Development, World Bank

  Margaret is a Senior Social Development Specialist with the World Bank, specializing in the social dimensions of climate change, disaster risk management, and community-based and gender-sensitive approaches to risk management. She leads work on pro-poor adaptation and resilience building for the Social Resilience cluster. Margaret has been with the World Bank since 1995, and has worked on urban development and post-conflict reconstruction in addition to DRM. She was part of a two-person team that established the World Bank's first unit focused on natural disaster risk management in 1998 (the Disaster Management Facility), and is credited with facilitating the Bank's recognition of disaster risk reduction as a development priority. She is one of the founders of the ProVention Consortium and served as Head of its Secretariat from 2007-2009.

• Javier Baez

  Senior Economist, Poverty Global Practice, World Bank

  Javier Baez is a Senior Economist in the Poverty Global Practice at the World Bank and a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Javier’s current research explores the effects of shocks, either natural (hurricanes, floods earthquakes) or man-made (civil conflicts), on children's contemporaneous outcomes such as infant mortality, nutrition, morbidity and child labor as well as their long-term impacts on health and human capital accumulation, and labor market outcomes. Javier holds a PhD in Economics from the Maxwell School of Public Affairs at Syracuse University, a Masters in Public Administration and International Development from Harvard University, and B.A. and M.A. degrees in economics from Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia.

• John M. Balbus

  Senior Advisor, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

  John, is the Senior Advisor for Public Health to the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, where he directs the NIEHS-WHO Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health Sciences. He serves as HHS principal to the U.S. Global Change Research Program and also co-chairs working groups on Climate Change and Human Health for the US Global Change Research Program and for the National Institutes of Health. John has served as lead author or reviewer for recent national and international climate change and health assessments, and is co-author of the HHS guide document “Primary Protection: Enhancing Health Care Resilience for a Changing Climate.” Before joining NIEHS, John was Chief Health Scientist for the non-governmental organization Environmental Defense Fund for seven years. He was also on the faculty of The George Washington University Schools of Medicine and Public Health and Health Services, where he was founding Director of the Center for Risk Science and Public Health and Acting Chairman of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health. Dr. Balbus received his A.B. degree in Biochemistry from Harvard University, his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and his M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. John Balbus received his BA degree in Biochemistry from Harvard University, his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and his M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

• Sushenjit Bandyopadhyay

  Consultant, South Asia Chief Economist’s Office, World Bank

  Sushenjit is currently a consultant with the South Asia Chief Economist’s Office, World Bank. He has published extensively on poverty and environmental linkages using household and spatial data. In the late 1980s Sushenjit became interested in droughts in India and its impact on agriculture. This led to his first published work on economics of droughts. Later Sushenjit contributed to the then much debated topic of Environmental Kuznet’s Curve. His recent research interests include climate change and its linkages with various aspects of poverty, such as, consumption welfare, child health, and occupational choices. Sushenjit holds a PhD in environmental economics from the University of Maryland.

• Edward B. Barbier

  John S Bugas Professor of Economics, University of Wyoming

  Edward is a Professor of Economics at the University of Wyoming.. His main expertise is natural resource and development economics as well as the interface between economics and ecology. He has served as a consultant and policy analyst for a variety of national, international and non-governmental agencies, including many UN organizations, the World Bank and the OECD. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, written or edited 21 books, and published in popular journals. He is often ranked among the top 20 cited environmental economists globally.

• Anne Biewald

  Post Doctoral Researcher - University of Potsdam

  Anne Biewald is a postdoctoral researcher in the landuse modelling group within the flagship MusiX within PIK's research domain Climate Impacts & Vulnerabilities. She is responsible for the bilateral trade module in the global land and water use model MAgPIE. Her research interests lie in international trade of agricultural goods, water management issues, virtual water, climate smart agriculture and economics of adaptation. She is currently work package leader in the project ECONADAPT funded under the seventh framework programme and part of BMBF funded project INNOVATE. Anne Biewald also coordinates a World Bank background paper on the impacts of climate change on agricultural related poverty. From 2010 - 2013 she coordinated the BMBF funded projectSustainable water management in a globalized world. In 2013 Anne Biewald held a scholarship for a research visit at MTT Agrifood Finland. She has won the young researcher's prize of the state of Brandenburg in the category social science of the year 2014. Anne read landscape ecology at Greifswald University and undertook her PhD in economics at the University of Potsdam.

• Michael Carter

  Professor, University of California, Davis

  Michael is Professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis and directs the BASIS Assets and Market Access Innovation Lab which studies rural poverty alleviation strategies in Africa, Asia and Latin American. Michael’s research focuses on small farm development strategies, including asset transfer and financial market deepening programs. He has published over 100 scientific papers and 3 books, and has mentored more than 45 Ph.D. students who now hold academic, research and government positions around the globe. He has managed in excess of $55 million in grant funds. Michael’s current research projects concern poverty dynamics and productive social safety nets, the impact of violence on aspirations and hope, evaluation of interventions to boost small farm uptake of improved technologies (including SRI rice, input subsidy coupons and stress-tolerant varieties) and feature a suite of projects that design, pilot and evaluate index insurance contracts as mechanisms to alleviate chronic poverty and deepen agricultural and rural financial markets. This latter work is being carried out under the I4 Index Insurance Innovation Initiative, a joint venture of BASIS, USAID, Oxfam, the UN FAO and the Microinsurance Innovation Facility of the UN ILO. On behalf of USAID, he also co-directs the newly founded Global Action Network on agricultural insurance. A fellow of the NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research), BREAD (Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development) and the American Agricultural Economics Association, Michael has served in editorial capacity with several journals devoted to economic development and food security issues. A member of the Board of Directors of Oxfam America for many years, he currently serves on the board of Freedom from Hunger as well as on multiple scientific advisory boards.

• Raffaello Cervigni

  Environmental Economist - Africa Region, World Bank

  Raffaello Cervigni Environmental Economist - Africa Region, World Bank Raffaello is a lead environmental and climate change economist at the World Bank. He has some 18 years professional experience on programs, projects and research financed by the World Bank, the GEF, the European Union, and the Italian Government in a variety of sectors. Rafaello is currently the World Bank’s regional coordinator for climate change in the Africa region, after serving for about three years in a similar role for the Middle East and North Africa region. He is the author or co-author of over 40 technical papers and publications, including books, book chapters and articles in learned journals. Rafaello holds Masters and Ph.D. degrees in economics (from Oxford University and University College London).

• Vikas Choudhary

  Senior Economist, Agriculture and Environmental Services, World Bank

  Vikas Choudhary is a Senior Economist at Risk Management and Markets Practice of the Agriculture and Environmental Services department of the World Bank. He manages the operations of the Agricultural Risk Management Team (ARMT). Prior to joining the Bank, he was Director, Global Economic Development at the Centre of High Impact Philanthropy at University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). He started his career with the Government of Rajasthan, India and subsequently worked with CARE-India; set up a USAID agribusiness project; and started a felt export business. Vikas holds a PhD in Development Anthropology and Masters in Public Administration from Syracuse University, and a Management degree from Indian Institute of Forestry Management.

• Richard Damania

  Lead Economist, Environment Group, World Bank

  Richard is a Lead Environmental Economist in the World Bank, where among a host of other things, I coordinate the climate change work agenda in the South Asia Region. Prior to this I was Professor in the School of Economics at the University of Adelaide in Australia. My publications and research interests have spanned many areas of economics including development economics, game theory, environmental economics and macroeconomics. In the past I have advised numerous international agencies such as the OECD, FAO, UNESCO and governments. The environment and conservation of endangered species are matters of long standing interest and concern to me. I have published numerous papers on the economics of endangered species conservation – an issue where solutions remain highly elusive and ever more challenging.

• Alejandro De la Fuente

  Senior Economist, Poverty Global Practice, World Bank

  Alejandro is a Senior Economist at the Poverty Global Practice at the World Bank. Previous to joining the Bank, he worked as an Advisor at the Human Development Report Office at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction Secretariat (UN/ISDR), the Inter-American Development Bank (Poverty and Inequality Advisory Unit), and various positions at the Ministry of Social Development and the Office of the President in Mexico.

• Christopher Delgado

  Senior Fellow - Food, Forests, and Water Program, World Resources Institute

  Christopher Delgado coordinates the Land Use topic of the New Climate Economy project, a multi-institution research inquiry on the interactions between economic and climate policies. He is particularly interested in restoration of degraded forest and agricultural landscapes. He came to WRI from the World Bank where he was the Economics and Policy Practice Leader in the Agriculture and Environmental Services Department. He was the founding Program Manager of the Bank’s shorter-term Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP) and of the longer- term and externally-governed Global Agricultural and Food Security Program (GAFSP). Christopher was the World Bank focal point for food security issues in the Korean and French G20 Presidencies. Prior to his stint at the World Bank, he spent 26 years at the International Food and Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). At IFPRI he initiated and co-led research on high-value food commodities, and was director of the Markets Theme for 3 years at ILRI. Chris holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University. He is also a former United States Peace Corps Volunteer (Chad), a university researcher (University of Michigan), and part-time teacher (Johns Hopkins Nitze School of Advanced International Studies).

• Kristie Ebi

  Professor, University of Washington

  Kristie L. Ebi is a Professor in the Department of Global Health and in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington; a Guest Professor at Umea University, Sweden; and Consulting Professor at Stanford University and George Washington University. She conducts research on the impacts of and adaptation to climate change, including on extreme events, thermal stress, foodborne safety and security, waterborne diseases, and vectorborne diseases. Her work focuses on understanding sources of vulnerability and designing adaptation policies and measures to reduce the risks of climate change in a multi-stressor environment. She has worked on assessing vulnerability and implementing adaptation measures in Central America, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the US. She is co-chair with Tom Kram (PBL, The Netherlands) of the International Committee On New Integrated Climate change assessment Scenarios (ICONICS), facilitating development of new climate change scenarios. Kristie was Executive Director of the IPCC Working Group II Technical Support Unit from between 2009 and 2012. She was a coordinating lead author or lead author for the human health assessment for two US national assessments, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development. Her scientific training includes an M.S. in toxicology and a Ph.D. and a Masters of Public Health in epidemiology, and postgraduate research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

• Francisco H. G. Ferreira

  Chief Economist, Africa Region, World Bank

  Francisco is the World Bank’s Chief Economist for the Africa Region and a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA, Bonn). He was formerly a lead economist in the Bank’s Research Department, and has also served as Deputy Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean, and as co-Director of the World Development Report 2006, on Equity and Development. Francisco has published widely in the fields of poverty and inequality in developing countries. He was awarded the Haralambos Simeonides and the Adriano Romariz Duarte Prizes by the Brazilian Economic and Econometric Societies, respectively, and the Kendricks Prize by the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth. He also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Economic Inequality, the Review of Income and Wealth, the World Bank Economic Review and the Economic Analysis Review. Francisco has taught at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and at the Paris School of Economics. He was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics.

• Ugo Gentilini

  Senior Economist, Social Protection and Labor Global Practice, World Bank

  Ugo is a Senior Economist with the Social Protection and Labor Global Practice at the World Bank. His interests encompass the analytics and practice of safety nets in different contexts, especially urban areas. He’s worked and published on issues at the intersection of social protection and food security, including in fragile states and crisis-affected countries. An Italian-Swedish national, Ugo holds a PhD in development economics from the University of Rome.

• Stephane Hallegatte

  Senior Economist, Climate Change Group, World Bank

  Stéphane Hallegatte is senior economist with the World Bank and Météo-France. His work includes macroeconomic dynamics and green growth strategies, urban economics and environmental policies, climate change vulnerability and adaptation, and disaster risk management. He is lead author of the IPCC for the special report on risks and extreme events published in 2011, and for the fifth assessment report to be published in 2014. He co-led with Marianne Fay the World Bank flagship report “Inclusive Green Growth: the Pathway to Sustainable Development.”

• Kirk Hamilton

  Visiting Professor, London School of Economics

  Kirk is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. Prior to this he was lead economist in the development research group. His research focuses on links between poverty and environment, “greening” national accounts, and the economics of climate change. He is a co-author of the Bank’s 2010 World Development Report: Development and Climate Change, and principal author of the World Bank reports Where is the Wealth of Nations? and The Changing Wealth of Nations. Prior to joining the Bank he served as manager of the environmental information program for statistics Canada, and was Deputy Director of the National Accounts Division, where his responsibilities included developing a green accounting program for the government of Canada. Other professional experience includes serving as a senior research fellow at the Centre for Social and Economics Research on the Global Environment, where he advised the UK government on policies for sulfur emissions reductions in the context of EU policy. His degrees include a PhD in Economics and an MSc in Resource and Environmental Economics from University College London, as well as a BSc (Eng.) in Mathematics and Engineering from Queen’s University at Kingston.

• Petr Havlík

  Senior Research Scholar, Ecosystem Services and Management, IIASA

  Petr is a senior research scholar at IIASA’s ESM Program. He is leading a group of 20 economists and natural scientists developing and applying the economic model GLOBIOM (Global Biosphere Management Model) to assess land use related trade-offs between different greenhouse gas mitigation options (incl. bioenergy), food security, and water availability under climate change. Petr is Co-Principle investigator in several large-scale EU FP7 research projects, and is in charge of several consultancy contracts with the European Commission, FAO, CSIRO, country agencies and the World Bank. Petr holds a PhD in Business and Economics from the University of Montpellier 1 (France), and the Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry in Brno (Czech Republic). Before joining IIASA, he worked as a post-doctoral fellow at INRA Grignon (France). Petr also held over three years a joint position between IIASA and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) where he focused on global livestock systems analysis.

• Ruth Hill

  Senior Economist, Poverty Global Practice, World Bank

  Ruth is currently a Senior Economist in the Poverty Global Practice working in the Africa Region. Prior to joining the World Bank in 2013, Ruth was a Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute where she conducted research on weather insurance and informal insurance in Africa and South Asia.

• Maros Ivanic

  Economist, Development Economics Research Group, World Bank

  Maros is an economist with the Agriculture and Rural Development team of the Development Economics Research Group at the World Bank where he analyzes issues related to international trade and poverty. Previously, he worked at the Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting in Qatar and the Center for Global Trade Analysis at Purdue University. Dr. Ivanic holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University. He is author of several journal articles and book chapters on the topics of international trade liberalization and poverty assessment.

• Somik Lall

  Lead Economist, Social, Urban and Resilience Global Practice, World Bank

  Somik Lall is a Lead Economist for Urban Development in the World Bank’s Social, Urban, and Resilience Global Practice. He has been a core team member of the World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography and the recent flagship report on Urban China, Senior Economic Counselor to the Indian Prime Minister’s National Transport Development Policy Committee, and Lead Author of the World Bank's flagship report on urbanization "Planning, Connecting, and Financing Cities Now". He currently leads a World Bank program on the Urbanization Review and Spatial Development, which provide diagnostic tools and a policy framework for policy makers to manage rapid urbanization and city development. His research and policy interests span urban and spatial economics, infrastructure development, and public finance, with more than 50 publications featured in peer-reviewed journals, edited volumes, and working papers.

• Jeffrey Lewis

  Chief Economist, Global Practices, World Bank

  Jeffrey is the Global Practices (GP) Chief Economist, where he serves as principal economic adviser to the GP Vice Presidents. His main responsibilities are to promote new knowledge and economic work across the GPs, especially on cross-cutting issues; support high quality analytic work on global policy priorities; support broader use of economic analysis in Bank operations; interact with policy and academic communities in client countries and development partners; strengthen linkages between GPs and other Bank units; and foster a community of economists across all global practices. He previously worked as Director, Economic Policy, Debt and Trade Department; as Senior Adviser to the PREM VP, where he managed Bank engagement with key external shareholder groups (G7/G8, G20, G24, etc.); as Adviser in the Office of the Chief Economist on areas including global trends, trade, international finance, migration, aid, and climate change; and as Manager of the International Finance team with responsibility for monitoring global financial market trends and their implications for developing countries. Prior to joining the Bank in 1993, he worked at the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID). He has carried out extensive research in areas including economic modeling, exchange rates and trade policy, stabilization and structural adjustment policies in developing economies, and regional trade arrangements. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University and a B.A. in economics from Harvard University.

• Andrea Liverani

  Program Leader, Middle East and North Africa Region, World Bank

  Andrea Liverani is a program leader in the Middle East & North Africa region. He served as a social development specialist with the World Development Report 2010 team, working on institutional and governance aspects of climate policy at the national and local level. Before moving to Washington DC to join the Bank, he was with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris. Andrea has extensive research and work experience in the Middle East and North Africa, and a PhD in Development Studies from the London School of Economics. He enjoys swimming, and good food.

• Simon Lloyd

  Research Fellow, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

  Simon is a Research Fellow in the Department of Social and Environmental Health Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His work has involved modelling various health impacts of climate change – including undernutrition, coastal flooding, diarrhoeal disease and labour productivity – for a number of European and global projects.

• Richard J. Murnane

  Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist, Global Facility for Disaster Risk and Recovery, World Bank

  Richard currently works as a Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist at the World Bank. Prior to joining the Bank, he worked for Risk Management Solutions (RMS) for several years, where he held various positions including Director of Developer Relations. Previous to joining RMS, Richard worked as a Senior Research Scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, and and as a Program Manager for the Risk Prediction Initiative (RPI). He is the Founder of NatCatRisk LLC, and is on the Board of Advisory Editors for the Oxford Research Review of Natural Hazard Science. He was previously the President of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Natural Hazards Focus Group, and member of the AGU Council. Richard obtained his Ph.D. in Geological and Geophysical Sciences from Princeton University.

• Jim Neumann

  Principal, Industrial Economics Incorporated

  Jim is a Principal at Industrial Economics, Incorporated (IEc), a Cambridge, MA-based consulting firm that specializes in the economic analysis of environmental policies, where he has worked for over 20 years. He specializes in the economics of adaptation to climate change and, within that area, analysis of the water resources and agriculture sector and the impacts of sea-level rise in coastal areas; in recognition of this expertise he was named a Lead Author for the IPCC Working Group II chapter on the Economics of Adaptation, and a Lead Author for the Coastal chapter of US National Climate Assessment. His recent work includes contributions to the World Bank’s landmark Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change study, and applications of robust decision-making under uncertainty for Sub-Sahara Africa’s water, power, and transport sectors; for Uganda’s water resource sector; and for South Asian hydropower facilities. He recently co-edited two books on adaptation in the agriculture sector: Looking Beyond the Horizon: How Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Responses Will Reshape Agriculture in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (World Bank 2013); and Building Resilience to Climate Change in South Caucasus Agriculture (World Bank 2014).

• Carlo del Ninno

  Senior Economist, Social Protection, World Bank

  Carlo is a senior economist in the Social Protection Africa Unit of the World Bank, working on several aspects of safety net policies and programs. He previously worked in the Social Protection and Labor practice of the Human Development Network at the World Bank. Over the past 10 years, he has worked on analytical and operational issues on safety net programs covering several countries in Africa and South Asia. Before joining the World Bank, he worked on food security for the International Food Policy Research Institute in Bangladesh, and on poverty analysis in several countries for the Policy Research Division of the World Bank and Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and has published on safety nets, food policy, and food security.

• Archana Patankar

  Consultant

  Archana is an independent consultant working in the field of climate change vulnerability and adaptation, urban health and environmental policy interventions. She has been leading, managing and delivering multi-country research project mandates as the Principal Investigator in the field of climate change adaptation in the Asia-Pacific region over the last four years. Archana has been invited as an expert in policy-setting workshops and as an expert resource person in training workshops related to disaster risk reduction and adaptation under the forums of Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), Japan, IRDR International Centre of Excellence, Academia Sinica, Taiwan and SEA-START Regional Center, Thailand. She has been working as Short Term Consultant with the World Bank on projects related to vulnerability, impacts and adaptation to climate change and pilot projects of Slum Electrification and Loss Reduction in Mumbai. Archana has carried out a number of research and consultancy assignments for renowned organizations like International Institute for Energy Conservation (IIEC), Reliance Energy and Tata Power. She has also taught economics at the postgraduate level for a number of years and has published many research papers on environment, health and climate change adaptation. She holds a PhD in Economics from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-Bombay).

• Jisung Park

  Doctoral Candidate, Harvard University

  Jisung is a PhD Candidate in the economics department at Harvard University, where he specializes in Environmental Economics, Labor Economics, and Public Policy. His research focuses on applications of economic theory and methods to explore important public policy questions, particularly at the intersection of climate change and long-run economic growth. A native of Lawrence, Kansas, and Seoul, South Korea, he received his undergraduate education in economics and political science from Columbia University ('09), and attended Oxford for two successive Masters programs in Environmental Change and Management (’10) and Development Economics (’11) on a Rhodes Scholarship (New York District, 2009).

• Narasimha D. Rao

  Research Scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

  Narasimha is a Research Scholar with the Energy Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). His research interests lie in energy economics and policy, poverty and inequality, and climate change. He is a recipient of the European Research Council (ERC)’s Starting Grant award for 2015-17 to research Decent Living Energy: energy and emissions thresholds for providing decent living standards to all. His professional experience includes four years as a Visiting Faculty at the Indian Institute of Management's Center for Public Policy in Bangalore, India, and seven years of consulting in the electricity industry in the US. Narasimha holds a PhD from Stanford University, California and a master’s degree in Electrical engineering and Technology Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Julie Rozenberg

  Economist, Climate Change Group, World Bank

  Julie is an Economist in the Climate Change Group of the World Bank, where she specializes in decision support. Prior to joining the World Bank, Julie was a research analyst at the International Research Centre on Environment and Development (CIRED) in Paris. Julie holds a Ph.D. in Climate Change and Energy Economics from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

• Meera Shekar

  Lead Health, Nutrition, Population Specialist, Health Group, World Bank

  Meera is Lead Health, Nutrition and Population Specialist with the World Bank’s HNP Global Practice. Over the last several years, she has led the repositioning of the nutrition agenda within the World Bank and with donor partners that led to the new global Scaling-up Nutrition (SUN) initiative that is now supported by over 54 client countries and over a hundred global partners. She has been one of the principals for the emerging aid-architecture for the SUN, and the G8 and G20 agenda-setting process for food security and nutrition over the last several years. Meera leads the global and country-level SUN costsing and financing analyses. She also works on both analytics and operations on the demographic dividend and population and development issues. Meera has lived and worked across the globe and has extensive programming experience in India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Vietnam, Bolivia, Guatemala, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Before joining the World Bank in 2003, she led UNICEF’s Health, Nutrition and Water and Sanitation teams in Tanzania and the Philippines. Meera has a PhD in international nutrition, epidemiology and population studies from Cornell University and has consulted extensively including with the Johns Hopkins University Population Communications Services and Population Services International. Among other publications, she is the author of the health chapter in the World Bank’s flagship report entitled eTransform Africa: the Transformational use of Information and Communication Technologies in Africa, 2012; Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development, 2006; and Scaling-up Nutrition –What will it cost 2009? Meera is an Adjunct professor at Tufts University, USA, and has been a guest speaker at several G8 preparatory events including the G8 parliamentarians’ conference in Canada.

• Emmanuel Skoufias

  Lead Economist, Poverty Group, World Bank

  Emmanuel is a Lead Economist at the Poverty Reduction Group of the World Bank. He specializes in impact evaluation, targeting, poverty measurement, urban and rural labor markets, land tenancy issues, and the role of risk mitigation and insurance in poverty alleviation. Other experience at the Bank includes a senior appointment at the Poverty and Gender Group in the Latin American and Carribean Region. Prior to joining the Bank, Emmanuel worked at the Research Department of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota (1988) and his B.A. degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley (1981).

• Youba Sokona

  Special Adviser, Sustainable Development, South Centre

  Youba is a special adviser on sustainable development at the South Centre in Switzerland. The South Centre is an intergovernmental organization of developing countries intended to meet the need for analysis of development problems and experiences. Until May 2012, he was coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) based in the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The ACPC is a joint initiative of the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Prior to this, he was the executive secretary of the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) in Tunis. He is also a co-chair of IPCC Working Group III. A citizen of Mali, Youba focuses on the energy, environment and sustainable development nexus and he has broad experience in Africa in policy development. Before joining OSS, he worked for the “Environnement et Développement du Tiers Monde,” based in Dakar, Senegal. Prior to that, he served as professor at Ecole Nationale d’Ingenieur of Bamako in Mali. Throughout his career, Youba has served in various advisory capacities to African governments. He has published several books and articles on the issues of energy, environment and development with a focus on Africa.

• Sailesh Tiwari

  Senior Economist, Poverty Global Practice, World Bank

  Sailesh is Senior Economist in the Poverty Global Practice of the World Bank. He works on analytical and policy issues that constitute the micro-foundations of inclusive growth. During his time at the Bank, he has led and participated in several regional and country-specific analytical pieces on economic mobility, shared prosperity, inequality of opportunity, food security, child nutrition, climate change and vulnerability. Sailesh holds a PhD in Economics from Brown University, an MSc. in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics, and a BA in Economics from Connecticut College.

• Michael Toman

  Lead Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank

  Michael (Mike) is Lead Economist on Climate Change in the Development Research Group and Manager of the Energy and Environment Team. His current research interests include alternative energy resources, policies for responding to risks of climate change catastrophes, timing of investments for greenhouse gas reduction, and mechanisms for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through reduced deforestation. During his career Mike has done extensive research on climate change economics and policy, energy markets and policy, environmental policy instruments, and approaches to achieving sustainable development. Prior to joining the World Bank in fall 2008, he held senior analytical and management positions at RAND Corporation, Inter-American Development Bank, and Resources for the Future. His teaching experience includes adjunct positions at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the School of the Environment, University of California at Santa Barbara. Mike has a B.A. from Indiana University, a M.Sc. in applied mathematics from Brown University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Rochester.

• Petra Tschakert

  Associate Professor, Pennsylvania State University

  Petra Tschakert is an Associate Professor of Geography and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) at the Pennsylvania State University in the USA and a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research Oslo (CICERO) in Norway. She was one of the coordinating lead author of the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, and a member of the core writing team of the Synthesis Report. Petra led an interdisciplinary development project on sustainable resource management and land use planning in northern Senegal. From 2003-04, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow with the Department of Biology and the Center for Global and Climate Change Research at McGill University, Montreal, exploring how an indigenous forest-dependent group in Panama could benefit from carbon sequestration programs. She directs several research initiatives that explore and facilitate livelihood resilience, climate change adaptation, and co-generative inquiry among resource-poor and marginalized men and women land users in Africa and the Himalayas. She is principal investigator on two research projects funded by the National Science Foundation: one on anticipatory learning under climatic uncertainty in Ghana and Tanzania, the other on coupled social-ecological dynamics in the context of climatic extremes, land disturbance through mining, and disease in Ghana. She is a co-investigator on a large interdisciplinary project on climate change adaptation in the Himalayas at CICERO. She also leads a research initiative on the role of values in deliberate societal transformation, funded by the International Social Science Council. Her work on adaptation is published in Global Environmental Change, Ecology & Society, Climatic Change, Ethics & Social Welfare, Environment & Urbanization, The Danish Journal of Geography, and Emotion, Space & Society. She holds a PhD in arid lands resource sciences and applied anthropology from the University of Arizona, and MPhil in Geography, Economics and French from the Karl Franzens Universität.

• Dominique van der Mensbrugghe

  Economist, Energy Group – World Bank

  Dominique is an Economist in the Energy Group at the World Bank. He was previously an economist and Team Leader of the Global Perspectives Studies Team at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). He joined the FAO in 2011 after twelve years at the World Bank where he was a Lead Economist in the Development Prospects Group. Prior to joining the World Bank, Dominique worked for 10 years at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) based in Paris. The focus of his work during his career has been on long-term structural change of the global economy and the analysis of global economic policy issues—including agricultural policies, regional and multilateral trade agreements, demographics and international migration, the Millennium Development Goals, and climate change. His work has appeared frequently in various economic journals and the World Bank’s annual flagship reports and he is one of the world’s experts on global computable general equilibrium modeling. He holds both Belgian and U.S. citizenship, received his undergraduate degree in mathematics at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium and a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

• Hessel Winsemius

  Senior Researcher, Deltares

  Hessel is senior researcher of hydrology at Deltares where he is an expert in large scale hydrology, global flood risks, forecasting droughts and floods, and remote sensing. He has completed research aimed at the use of large-scale satellite observations, in particular of the gravity field and evaporation processes, as complementary data for the construction and calibration of hydrological models. The research has been applied on the Zambezi river basin. During this research, he gained a great deal of experience in working and modelling with large and spatially distributed data sets. Also, he acquired skills in working in developing countries and cooperating with governmental institutes. Hessel Winsemius has been active in several courses of the chair of Hydrology at the Delft, University of Technology. Furthermore, he was lecturer of the course "Water Resources Assessment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Predictions in ungauged and data scarce basins", given each year by WaterNet in the SADC region. He supervises MSc. students on a regular basis and is a regular external committee member for MSc. graduations.

• Sven Wunder

  Senior Economist, Center for International Forestry Research

  Sven joined CIFOR in February 2000 and works as a Senior Economist in the Livelihoods Programme. His research includes areas such as payments for environmental services, deforestation, and poverty. Previously, he has worked for IUCN, the Center for Development Research in Denmark and Danida. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Copenhagen in 1992 and a DSc in Forestry from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen in 2001.