Disaster Risk Reduction and Rural Resilience: With a Focus on Agriculture, Water, Gender and Technology

Sudip Mitra is currently the Head and full Professor at the School of Agro and Rural Technology and the founding head of the Centre for Disaster Management & Research at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati, Assam, India. A Nehru-Fulbright Fellow and Visiting Professor at the Keio University, Japan. He is a faculty member in the International Joint Masters and Ph.D. programs in Food Science and Technology for the Gifu University, Japan and IIT Guwahati. An elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI). His research focuses on climate smart agriculture and the application of indigenous resources and technologies to improve soil quality and enhance agricultural productivity. He has guided 4 PhDs, and 13 more are currently working under his supervision. Serves as an Editorial Board member of PLOS Climate Journal. Edited two books published by Springer and published around 50 papers in peer reviewed journals (mostly Q1) and reports of international repute. Served as a task force member of the Ministry of Rural Development, DST- TIFAC on Climate Change and Agriculture. He conducted many Nationally and Internationally funded research projects like JICA, UNEP, GEF, World Bank, CIDA, GTZ, DST, DBT, UEF-Finland etc. He also worked as a consultant for the Inter Academy Council’s project on S & T in African Agriculture.

Rajib Shaw is a Professor in the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University, Japan. Earlier, he was the executive director of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) and was a professor at Kyoto University. His expertise includes disaster governance, community-based disaster risk management, climate change adaptation, urban risk management, and disaster and environmental education. He was the chair of the United Nations Science Technology Advisory Group (STAG) for disaster risk reduction and currently is the co-chair of the Asia Pacific Science Technology Academic Advisory Group (APSTAAG). He is also the coordinating lead author (CLA) for the Asia chapter’s 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is the editor-in-chief of the journal Progress in Disaster Science and series editor of a Springer book series on disaster risk reduction. He has published 73 books and over 450 academic papers and book chapters.