Dr. Anik Bhaduri

Executive Director, Sustainable Water Future Programme

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Anik Bhaduri is an environment and resource economist with more than twenty years of experience in research specializing in environmental assessments, natural resource allocation, and evaluation of adaptation strategies under climate change. He is the Director of Future Earth's Sustainable Water Future Programme (Water Future), co-chair of Future Earth-Asia Regional Committee, and member of Future Earth Coast Academy. He is also an adjunct professor at the Australian River Institute, Griffith University, Australia, and at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University. As a science strategist, Anik recently co-designed a joint initiative with UNESCO, 'Science for SDG6: Science to Accelerate the Implementation of SDG6.' This initiative underscores the pivotal role that 21st-century Science can play in bridging the gaps in SDG6 monitoring, assessment, and implementation. Anik contributed with world-leading water experts to a knowledge synthesis exercise to identify appropriate scientific tools, models, and approaches that can contribute to addressing key water and climate policy gaps with respect to readiness and availability. Anik also serves as a senior expert consultant at UNESCO and helps prepare standardized guidelines for national water assessment. Previously, he was on secondment to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN, Rome, as a senior expert consultant to develop the methodology for the FAO flagship report on the State of Land and Water for Agriculture (SOLAW21).

Kazuo Nadaoka

Co-chair, Future Earth Asia Regional Committee / Executive Director, SIMSEA / Professor Emeritus, Tokyo Institute of Technology

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Dr. Kazuo Nadaoka is professor emeritus at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech). He is currently affiliated with Kajima Technical Research Institute as advisor. He earned degree of D. Eng., Tokyo Tech in 1986. Currently he is Co-chair of Future Earth Asia Regional Committee, the Executive Director of Sustainability Initiative in the Marginal Seas of South and East Asia (SIMSEA) and the chair of the SIMSEA subcommittee in the Science Council of Japan (SCJ). He was also a former Vice–President of Japanese Coral Reef Society (JCRS), a council member of International Coral Reef Society (ICRS) and Chair of Coastal Engineering Committee in Japan Society of Civil Engineers (CEC/JSCE). His main research fields are coastal ecosystem conservation studies, integrated coastal zone management, and coastal oceanography & engineering. Dr. Nadaoka has been contributing to realizing sustainable and resilient socio-ecological systems in an integrated terrestrial-coastal-marine linkage framework (Green-Blue Linkages). He has introduced transdisciplinary approaches through many international projects and in close collaboration with various stakeholders. His recent international projects include SATREPS-BlueCARES project, STAND-InMSEA project, Belmont Forum COAST Card project, and “Developing a Meta-Network (Network of Networks) for Collaboration of Programs on Oceans, Marginal Seas and Coasts under the Future Earth” project. Contact email address: knadaoka@gmail.com

Battogtokh Dorjgotov

Chair, FE Mongolian Committee

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Dr. Battogtokh Dorjgotov graduated National University of Mongolia in 2003 with a Bachelor degree in Geology and a Master degree in Geography Information System (GIS) in 2006. He got his PhD degree in Research and Development (R&D) management in 2011 at Nanhua University, Taiwan R.O.C. He has long term research experience in socio-economic geography, sustainability, environmental policy management, science-policy interface, science, technology and innovation policy management, and strategic policies in R&D and knowledge management. Currently, he is Chair of Future Earth Mongolian Committee and Director of Department of Science, Technology, Innovation Policy and Coordination of Policy Implementation, Ministry of Education and Science, Mongolia.

Hyun Seok Kim

iLEAPS Korea / Professor, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University

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Joon Kim

Vice-chair, Future Earth Korea National Committee

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Kalpana Balakrishnan

Chair, Future Earth India National Committee /Dean (Research) & Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Occupational and Environmental Health; ICMR Centre for Advanced Research on Air Quality, Climate and Health; Sri Ramachandra Institute for Higher Education and Research

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Professor Balakrishnan acquired her undergraduate education at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India and subsequently her doctoral and post-doctoral training at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, USA. Over the last 28 years, she has established one of the largest inter-disciplinary occupational and environmental health research groups in India, at the Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai. She is currently engaged in research and training collaborations with a network of more than 50 national and international institutional partners to address national and global health research priorities. Her primary research involvement has been in the area of air pollution and health and chemical risk assessment. She has designed and conducted large scale field studies concerning the household, ambient and occupational environment across multiple states in India, including monitoring and evaluation of intervention efforts. Recently, she has also been engaged in the conduct of mother-child cohort studies as well multi-country randomized control trials to strengthen the evidence for efficacy of air pollution interventions on birth/early childhood and adult cardio-vascular outcomes. She has been a recipient multiple center of excellence grants from national and international funding agencies. She is globally acclaimed for her contributions on (i) developing novel exposure assessment approaches to characterize the complex exposures experienced by rural and urban populations in low and middle income countries (ii) designing and conducting strategic epidemiological investigations in India to catalyze policy level actions by leveraging across the national and global pools of evidence and (iii) informing the climate change and human health discourse using a co-benefits approach. She has led and served as a member in many national and international technical assessments concerned with air quality and health, including the Global Burden of Disease and Comparative Risk Assessments, The World Health Organisation Air Quality Guidelines, The International Agency for Research on Cancer Monographs, The Global Energy Assessments, UNEP Asia Pacific Regional Assessments and the India State level Burden of Disease Initiative. She serves in more than dozen National and Global Technical Review Committees across multiple countries. She currently serves as a member of the National Steering Committee on Air Pollution Related Issues for Health Effects for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India and the Indian Council for Medical Research led National Task Force for assessment of impact of initiatives to promote clean household energy. She has published more than 200 scientific articles in high impact peer-reviewed journals as well as book chapters and training manuals that have merited an H-index of 60, more than 80,000 citations and several million views to date. Since 2020, she has been ranked for the last five consecutive years among the top 2% of scientists in the field of General and Internal Medicine in an independent study conducted by Stanford University. She is a distinguished fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences She is a recipient of numerous awards including the Clarivate India Research Excellence Citation award (2021), the Public Health Foundation of India award (2008) for Outstanding Scientist in Public Health, The Hari Om Ashram Trust Award(2000) for Outstanding Scientist administered by the University Grants Commission, Govt. of India, the Outstanding Woman Scientist Award(1999) of The Government of Tamil Nadu and The Award for Excellence in Environmental Health Research(1998) administered by Harvard Medical International. She has also led the development of new and novel academic programs at Sri Ramachandra Institute for Higher Education and Research with support from the NIH Fogarty International Center and the Center for International Migration, GIZ that includes Masters programs in Industrial Hygiene and Safety, the BPH and MPH program in Occupational and Environmental Health and BSc (Hons.) program in Environmental Health Sciences. Her current portfolio is focused on building a world class Faculty of Public Health at SRIHER that can jointly provide advanced research and public health practice capacities for a diverse range of students and professionals in public health and to scale research capacities at SRIHER to enable ranking as an Institute of Eminence within the next 5 years.

Kate Narin

Director, Future Earth Australia

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Kate is a social scientist with expertise in equity and justice as critical elements of any sustainability program. She has a strong interest in Indigenous rights and leadership through empowering others. She has nearly 20 years in government, academia, and the not-for-profit sector and is a leading knowledge broker in environmental science. Through roles in climate change and energy to marine debris and biodiversity, she has a holistic understanding of human-ecological connections. She is an accomplished project manager and facilitator who cares deeply about the regeneration of our planet. Awarded a Masters of Applied Science in 2013, she investigated ways to enhance Indigenous participation in marine research of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. This brought together her long standing dedication for ocean conservation and commitment to Indigenous sovereignty and justice. She believes connection to Country and to each other is the key for creating a thriving future for us all. Kate also leads Future Earth Australia.

Kuaanan Techato

Future Earth Thailand / Prince of Songkla University · Faculty of Environmental Management

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Dr. Kuaanan Techato is currently working as Associate Professor at Faculty of Environmental Management, Prince of Songkla University. He has completed his Ph.D. in Environmental Management from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand after previous master of industrial engineering and mechanical engineering. From 2012 until now, his main area of interest focuses on Environmental Sciences and Environmental Management. His area of expertise includes Energy and Environment Policy.

Makoto Taniguchi

Co-chair, Future Earth Japan National Committee / Deputy Director-General, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature

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Professor Makoto Taniguchi is a hydrogeologist and Deputy Director-General of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) in Japan. He received his PhD in the field of groundwater hydrology from University of Tsukuba, Japan in 1987. He was a visiting scholar at the Division of Groundwater, CSIRO, Australia (1987-1988, 1996-1997), Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona, USA (1991-1992), and Department of Oceanography, Florida State University (2001-2002, 2002-2003). He has worked on groundwater research and teaching of hydrogeology in universities including The University of Tsukuba and Nara University of Education. He moved to RIHN in 2003, and became a full professor of hydrogeology in 2009. He is currently the vice president of International Association of Hydrogeology (2016-present) and a president of the Japanese Association of Groundwater Hydrology (2015-present). He served as a coordinator of the UNESCO GRAPHIC Project (2004-2011) and GWSP-Asia network (2005-2009), Associate Editor of Ground Water (2003-2008) and Hydrological Processes (2010-2013), and Vice President of the International Committee of Groundwater of IAHS under IUGG (2007-2011). He has worked on groundwater projects around the world, in particular Asia, authoring or co-authoring over 120 articles and 8 books including “Subsurface Hydrological Responses to land cover/use changes (Kluwer, 1997)”, “Land and Marine Hydrogeology (Elsevier, 2003)”, “Groundwater system responses to changing climate (Taylor and Francis, 2009), “Groundwater and subsurface environment (Springer, 2011)”, and “Groundwater as a key for adaptation to the changing climate and society (Springer, 2014)”. He has published widely in some of the top journals in hydrogeology and geophysics, such as Hydrogeology Journal, Nature Climate Change, Nature Geoscience, Water Resources Research, Groundwater and Journal of Hydrology. He has strong connections to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary international research, which include not only natural/social sciences like oceanography, climatology, engineering, economics, human geography, anthropology, etc., but also stakeholder engagement research including governors, industries and citizens. Recently, he received a transdisciplinary research fund as PI of the Belmont Forum “Sustainable Urban Global Initiative Food-Water-Energy Nexus (SUGI FWE NEXUS)”: Intelligent Urban Metabolic Systems for Green Cities of Tomorrow: a FWE Nexus-based Approach, and as PI of international research projects of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) which are strongly related to water-energy-food Nexus in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ways. He also has experiences as Principal Investigator in co-designing research agenda to identify research priorities for the Japanese Strategic Research Agenda (JSRA), by emphasizing sustainability with researchers, representatives of local governments, industry, media, and non-governmental organizations, as well as highlighting a series of topics and themes for researchers to prioritize. As a result, he has a strong record of working at disciplinary and sectoral interfaces at an international scale.

Ram Avtar

Global Land Programme – Japan Nodal Office / Associate Professor, Hokkaido University

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Rohini Mattoo

MAIRS-FE Regional Project Office / Researcher, Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science

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Dr. Rohini Mattoo obtained an M.Sc. from the M.S. University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, where her research work included unravelling the microbial diversity of the aquatic environment (Arabian Sea and a lake in Vadodara). She then earned her PhD at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. For her post-doctoral training at Johns Hopkins University, USA, Dr. Mattoo established fundamental tools and foundations in the field of tuberculosis research and also characterized a novel cell wall enzyme from an emerging opportunistic pathogen. At the Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science, Dr. Mattoo’s research focuses on climate change biology, microbiome, soil rhizosphere, and sustainable agroecosystems.

Shih-Chun, Candice Lung

Chair / Health Investigation and Air Sensing for Asian Pollution (Hi-ASAP)

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Dr. Shih-Chun Candice Lung is a Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Research Center for Environmental Changes as well as the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Center for Sustainability Science in Academia Sinica. Her research includes air quality and health, health impacts of climate change, and health adaptation. Currently, she is an advisory group member of the Future Earth Health KAN. She is also the chair of the Science Steering Committee of the Hi-ASAP, an Asian regional Future Earth activity.

Segundo Joaquin E. Romero, Jr.

Future Earth Philippines Program / Professorial Lecturer, Ateneo de Manila University

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Dr Segundo Joaquin E. Romero, Jr. is the President of the Universities and Research Councils Network on Innovation for Inclusive Development in Southeast Asia, a nonprofit organisation affiliated with the Development Studies Program of the Ateneo de Manila University, where he is also a Professorial Lecturer. Dr Romero had previously served as a Professor of Political Science at the University of the Philippines, as well as the Executive Vice-President and Dean of the Graduate School of Public and Development Management of the Development Academy of the Philippines. Dr Romero writes a weekly opinion column for the local newspaper, Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Thung-Hong Lin

Deputy Executive Secretary, Future Earth Taipei

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Dr. Thung-Hong Lin is a Research Fellow of the Institute of Sociology in Academia Sinica as well as the Deputy Executive Secretary of Future Earth Taipei. His research interests include social stratification, sociology of disaster, comparative political economy, quantitative method, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Xiaoyu Fang

Co-Executive Director (Communication & Engagement), Future Earth Coasts

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Dr. Xiaoyu Fang is a marine scientist and sustainability advocate with over 15 years of experience in environmental research, spanning glaciers to coastal ecosystems. She holds a PhD from the University of Plymouth and Ghent, with expertise in marine ecosystem health, biodiversity modeling, and ocean observation. Xiaoyu has dedicated her career to advancing global sustainability through science-policy engagement, international collaboration, and leadership development. She is particularly passionate about empowering underrepresented voices, supporting women scientists, and fostering the next generation of leaders driving change in environmental science. As Co-Executive Director of Future Earth Coasts, she oversees communication and engagement, bridging science, policy, and communities to promote inclusive, sustainable solutions. She leads cross-cutting initiatives like Empowering Future Leadership and the Meta-Network and co-founded the Cyber-Coasts, Just Transitions, and Tour de Coasts working groups to advance coastal sustainability through innovative research and equitable action. She also serves on the Expert Group of the Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre, the Science Steering Committee for the Sustainability Initiative in the Marginal Seas of South and East Asia, and is a member of the ISC Expert Network for the UN Ocean Conference 2025. Previously, Xiaoyu worked at the European Marine Observation and Data Network Secretariat, where she coordinated international projects like the EMODnet Partnership for China and Europe and contributed to Horizon 2020 projects such as iAtlantic and Blue-Cloud, which strengthened cross-border collaboration in marine research. With a vision for a future driven by equitable decision-making, Xiaoyu is committed to empowering the next generation to create a thriving and sustainable planet.

Zhenming Ji

Coordinator, Chinese National Committee for Future Earth

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Dr. Zhenming Ji serves as the coordinator of the Secretariat of the Chinese National Committee for Future Earth. He obtained his PhD in Physical Geography in 2012 and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Connecticut and Loyola Marymount University in the United States. Over the past decade, he has primarily engaged in research on the climate and environment of the cryosphere and sustainable development. He has authored books such as "Assessment of Climate and Environmental Changes in the Everest Region" and "Cryosphere Chemistry," and published over 70 papers in journals including Nature Reviews Earth & Environment and Nature Communications. He has led projects such as "Research on Cryosphere Services and Their Resilience Under Climate Change." He is a member of the Youth Working Committee of the Chinese Geographical Society's Cryosphere Science Branch and mainly devotes himself to popularizing knowledge about climate change and cryosphere science among Chinese youth.