Nok Thasanawan Boonmavichit Post-doctoral Researcher (September 2023 - present)

Nok Thasanawan Boonmavichit serves as a professional in foresight and futures studies, currently acts as a Guest Editor for the Special Issue of the Journal of Futures Studies. Through her work as an independent consultant and facilitator, she has had the privilege of collaborating with various organizations across Asia and Europe, addressing critical issues such as air pollution, peace and security, sustainable finance, education, healthcare, and innovative policy-making. Nok's approach is grounded in fostering anticipatory capacity through meaningful discussions, empathy, and inclusivity, always mindful of the diverse perspectives and needs involved.

Driven by a genuine passion for research, Nok has made contributions to publications like The Journal of Futures Studies and The Journal of Foresight. Through her exploration of critical realism philosophy and emancipatory foresight, she seeks to advocate for holistic and grounded approaches to social change. 

Nok envisions the futures embedded in harmony and inclusivity, with a close connection to ecology and indigenous ways of knowing. She places great value on mindfulness and reflexive deliberations in navigating the complexities of the social world, guiding her approach to framing social problems and decision-making towards prosperous futures for all.

Thanawat Bremard
Visiting Ph.D. Researcher (December 2018 - present) 

Thanawat Bremard is a Ph.D. candidate with the ABIES doctoral school, AgroParisTech, France. Having completed a Master in Socio-Anthropology Applied to Local Development (2018), his main interest lies in water infrastructures, Political Ecology of water governance and the environmental transformation of Bangkok from a water-based city to a land-based one. Thanawat has worked with the CSDS during 2017 on the politics of categorization of drought and water management in Northeastern Thailand. Since 2018, Thanawat has been looking at the governance of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand, particularly when it is enacted during projects that affect the riverside communities. His current PhD thesis “Bangkok and its Waters: Cultural, Economic and Political Issues of an Environmental Transformation” picks on his previous work to further develop the study of floods, water usage and governance, land subsidence and land tenure in his home city: Bangkok.

Dr. Saw Win
Senior Research Associate (December 2015 - present)

Professor Saw Win is a retired Rector of Maubin University, and since 2008 an Executive Director of the Renewable Energy Association Myanmar (REAM), a local NGO in Myanmar. He collaborates with CSDS in Myanmar on research related to the Thanlwin River, and helps coordinate the fellowship program.

Dr. Michael Medley
Senior Research Associate (August 2014 - present)

Dr. Michael Medley teaches the Development Project Management course in MAIDS. He has research and activism interests in international aid transparency (www.aidopener.org) and South Sudan (www.southsudancivics.info). Formerly an aid worker in Sudan and South Sudan, he gained his PhD from Bristol University (UK) researching the politics of famine relief in Sudan.

Johanna M. Götz
Visiting PhD researcher (March 2023 - March 2024)

Johanna M. Götz is a doctoral researcher institutionalized within the Doctoral Programme in Political, Societal and Regional Change at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Johanna is currently a visiting PhD researcher with CSDS and the UNESCO Chair in Resource Governance and Futures Literacy at the Faculty of Political Science. Educated as a geographer in Leipzig, Yogyakarta, Bonn, and beyond, she aims to critically scrutinize hegemonic assumptions and paradigms by complicating questions around resource politics, pro-democratic mobilization, and queer+ time & space. Within her PhD project, she is curious to better understand how water (through resource politics & the anti-dam movement) and art (e.g. protest art, memes, sci-fi) as distinct but related matters are mobilized by social movements and how they can be utilized to form a more nuanced understanding of processes of democracy-in-the-un/making in contemporary Burma/Myanmar and beyond.

Nwet Kay Khine
Post-doctoral Researcher (January 2020 - September 2023)

Nwet Kay Khine is a former journalist and a writer from Myanmar. Nwet joined the Master program for International Development Studies in Chulalongkorn University and then continued her learning at the Erasmus Mundus Masters in Journalism, Media and Globalization in Aarhus University, Denmark and later in Hamburg University, Germany. She completed her doctoral study at the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies in Mahidol University with a thesis titled “Press Censorship in Myanmar From Colonial Days to Democratic Transition in The 21st Century”. Nwet has been an active member of civil society movements for environmental justice and democracy in Myanmar since 2008 and Nwet’s post-doctoral project will be embedded within the effort to build strong autonomous social movements initiated by agrarian civil society groups led by Paung Ku and its partners. Nwet is examining how have neoliberal capitalism, authoritarianism and populism came about to converge in today’s Myanmar to form a tripodal axis of power, how does the latter operate, and how have such reactionary forces impacted on the emerging autonomous social movements.

Staci B. Martin Visiting Researcher (Oct 2021 - March 2022)

Staci B. Martin studies critical hope and despair, co- researching and peace- building. She is a community based action researcher that committed to co- creating practical solutions that are culturally responsive and led by, for and in partnership with the community, especially with the refugee communities. She has designed and implemented psychosocial peace- building educational programs in four countries; South Africa, Nepal, Jamaica, and Kenya. She was the recipient of the 2018 CPED Dissertations in Practice of the Year Award. She is also a (2020) Rotary Peace Fellow and a Thailand- United States Educational Foundation Fulbright scholar (2021- 2022). PDX Scholar: Martin Selected Works Personal Website: https://mar24681.wixsite.com/wonderlust

Chanatporn Limprapoowiwattana
Post-doctoral Researcher (January 2021 - December 2021)

Chanatporn earned her Ph.D. in Political Science (Doctorat en science politique) in 2020 from l’Université de Lausanne in Switzerland, with financial support from the Swiss Government through the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships for Foreign Scholars and Artists (2016-2019). Her doctoral research addressed Transnational Standardisation and the Global Production Network of Organic Rice: A Case Study of Thai Buddhist Connectivity. She subsequently worked on research about Intelligent agriculture and the transformation of global agri-food production networks. Overall, she is interested in exploring human – nature relationships/ interactions in the context of food production and global food governance.

Hiromi Inagaki-Wagner
Visiting Ph.D. Researcher (December 2018 – December 2020)

Hiromi Inagaki-Wagner is a PhD candidate from the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Her research investigates the spatial and temporal linkages among contemporary and past electrification projects in Northeast Thailand. Prior to the PhD study, she was based in Bangkok for over 8 years, primarily working on issues of climate change and e-waste in Southeast Asian countries. She holds B.A. in English Literature from Waseda University in Tokyo and M.A. in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies in Hague, the Netherlands. 

Yuka Kiguchi
Research Associate (February 2019 - February 2020) 

Yuka Kiguchi is a director of Mekong Watch, an NGO based in Japan. Having completed a Master in Area Studies (2014), her main interest lies in the relationship between people and freshwater fish in the Mekong River Basin. Since 2012, Yuka has been researching on fisheries resource management in the Mun River Basin, Thailand.

Wayne Nelles
Senior Research Associate (January 2020 - March 2020)

Wayne Nelles has a PhD in Education and has lectured at various universities in Canada and abroad. From 2014 to March 2019 he was a Visiting Scholar at Chulalongkorn University School of Agricultural Resources (CUSAR). From 2008-2011 he was stationed in Peru as Head of the Capacity Strengthening Department, International Potato Center, a member organization of the Consultative Group on Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Prior to this, from 1996-2005, he was a Senior Associate with the Sustainable Development Research Institute (SDRI), University of British Columbia, Canada. For the past 25 years he has also consulted with various international agencies such as APAARI, CIDA, CTA, IDRC, ITD, UNESCO and UNICEF. He has won various academic awards and research grants, and published over 40 articles, working papers or edited books. His current research with Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS) focuses on social-educational and agroecological transformations needed to build Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) in Southeast Asia through linkages with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Young Joon Koh
Visiting Ph.D. Researcher (December 2019 - March 2020)

YoungJoon KOH is pursuing a PhD in Government and International Relations at The University of Sydney with a dissertation entitled “Populism in the Philippines and Thailand.” His doctoral research focuses on the Philippine presidential elections from 1998 to 2016 and Thailand’s elections from 2001 to 2019. Prior to coming to The University of Sydney, he held MA (2014) in political science from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea. His research interests include election campaigning, populism, public opinions and democracy with a focus on Southeast Asia. His work examined “public understanding of democracy and democratic governments in Thailand.” Currently, he is a visiting PhD student at the University of the Philippines, Diliman and Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. As a research student at The University of Sydney, YoungJoon received a Doctoral Research Travel Grant for his fieldwork in the Philippines and Thailand.

Kaan Jittiang
Visiting Ph.D. Researcher (May 2018 – December 2019)

Kaan Jittiang is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He completed a bachelor’s degree (first class honors) in international relations from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, and a master’s degree in international development studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs, the George Washington University, Washington, DC.

His areas of research interest encompass forced migration and refugees, international development, social movements, Southeast Asian studies, Thai politics, ASEAN studies, and American foreign policies toward Southeast Asia. Currently he investigates refugee policies and practices of the Thai state and their impacts on lived experiences and livelihoods of refugees in Thailand.

Miriam Jaehn
Visiting Ph.D. Researcher (May 2019 – November 2019)

Miriam Jaehn is a PhD Candidate in the Comparative Asian Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore. Her research investigates the processes of migrant subjectivity formation through the migrants' experience of their journeys within the regions of South and Southeast Asia, focusing mainly on migrant movements from Myanmar to Thailand and Nepal. Prior to her PhD, Miriam graduated from Humboldt University, Berlin in Modern South and Southeast Asian Studies during which she spent a semester at the Political Science Faculty of Chulalongkorn University. 

Robert Cole
Visiting Ph.D. Researcher (February 2019 – September 2019)

Robert Cole is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. Rob’s research focuses on the social and livelihood implications of commercial maize cultivation among formerly subsistence-oriented farming households in Laos’ northeast borderlands. The study explores the transformative effects on local livelihoods of a cross-border network of traders and animal feed producers in Vietnam, linking remote upland villages to global agri-food and biotechnology corporations. Rob holds a Master’s in Social Policy and Development from London School of Economics (2013), and has undertaken a range of research and applied positions including with the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and Mekong River Commission.

Takeshi Ito
Visiting Professor (April 2019 – July 2019)

Takeshi Ito is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Graduate School of Global Studies, Sophia University. His research lies at the intersection of ecology, capitalism, and state. It explores how interactions on multiple scales between human and non-human actors embedded in particular institutional and ecological settings produce social and ecological inequality with a focus on sustainability. His research interests include Agrarian and Environmental Change, Political Economy of Development, East and Southeast Asia, and theories of Hegemony and Resistance. At the CSDS, his research project in collaboration with Dr. Carl Middleton will explore how processes of trade, investment, and aid (re)shape land and waterscapes—e.g., forests, fields, rivers, wetlands  in Japan and Thailand—as part of global capitalist development where the movement of capital initiates a circuit of enclosure and recommoning. 

Dr. Yu Xiaogong
Senior Research Associate (December 2015 - March 2018)

Dr. Yu Xiaogang is Director of the NGO Green Watershed in Yunnan Province, China. His research focuses on watershed governance in Southwest China, especially on the Jinsha River, Lancang River, and Nu River. Dr Yu’s has been widely recognized including being awarded the Goldman Prize in 2006 and Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2009. In 2015, his work in the Lashi watershed was awarded the UNDP Equator Prize.

Johanna Götz
Intern (January - March 2018)

Johanna Götz has just finished her Master thesis on the topic ‘The politics of water governance in Myanmar – a hydrosocial approach’ at the Department of Geography, University of Bonn, Germany. As a critical geographer her research interests focuses on water governance and politics from a hydrosocial perspective as well as critical development studies. During early 2017, she spent five months in Myanmar/Burma to conducted research for her Master’s thesis and to intern with the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation in Yangon. Johanna is currently interning with CSDS working with Dr. Carl Middleton on a scientific paper continuing their research in Burma/along the Salween River.

Dr. LEE Yohan
Visiting Researcher (July 2017 )

Dr. Lee is a Research Fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Korea. His research interests include the competition and coexistence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and China and Japan’s strategies on Mekong governance and implications for Korea.

Murray Boardman
Research Associate (January 2017 - October 2017)

Murray Boardman is a PhD candidate from Deakin University, Australia. His research is exploring how NGOs articulate the quality of their development projects, with field work in Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand. Murray has worked in development practice for 14 years predominately in East Africa and Southeast Asia, and has a technical background is water engineering and food security. He holds a Masters of Applied Science degree from Massey University, New Zealand.

Hermes Huang
Research Associate (August 2015 - December 2017)

Hermes Huang is currently working on a research project exploring open source hardware and innovative design in Indonesia, Nepal, and Thailand. He is the lead organizer for the International Development Design Summit (IDDS) Sisaket 2017. Hermes is a graduate of the Masters of Arts in International Development Studies Program at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and the University of California, Davis.

Alec Scott
Intern (July 2017 - November 2017)

Currently based with the civil society organization KESAN, Alec has worked with civil society and community based organizations from all seven of Burma’s ethnic states on multiple issues related with human rights, environmental justice, and resource governance. Alec’s focus has centered around supporting rural communities across Burma to protect their basic human rights. He is currently interning with CSDS working with Dr. Carl Middleton on a report about the Salween River.

Danny Marks
Visiting Researcher (March 2015 - May 2017)

Dr. Danny Marks is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia project at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Dr. Marks completed his PhD dissertation, An Urban Political Ecology of the 2011 Bangkok Floods, at the University of Sydney. He has published on climate change governance, disaster risk reduction, and Thai domestic politics in numerous academic journals, blogs and newspapers.

Siri Luther
Intern (February - March 2016)

Siri Luther recently graduated from King’s College London with a Master of Science in Emerging Economies and International Development. She majored in both political economy and inclusive development. She also has a Bachelor’s in Communication Management from Chulalongkorn University. Siri is interested in improving livelihoods, poverty alleviation,inclusive growth, and sustainable development.

Kyle Ojima
Intern (June - August 2015)

Kyle Ojima worked at CSDS in 2015, working as a communications volunteer where he designed a new website for the program, helped with two trainings in Hanoi and Ubon Ratchatani, and mentored another intern.  He received a Bachelors in Japanese and International Studies at the University of Colorado - Boulder and a Master's in International Development from the Joseph Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.  Since graduating, he has worked at the U.S. Department of State in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement and currently works with the U.S. Peace Corps in Nepal as a Food Security Volunteer.