Sonia Akter
Sonia Akter is Assistant Dean (Research) and Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Previously she was Scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) where she led the Gender Research Team and was the coordinator for gender research of the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP) program of the CGIAR (2014-2015). Prior to that, she was Senior Researcher at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, Germany (2011-2013). She graduated with a PhD in Environmental Management and Development from the Australian National University in 2010, and holds a MS degree in Economics from York University, Toronto, Canada. She has worked on numerous policy-oriented research projects in South and Southeast Asia, Australia and Canada. Her three key research interests are climate change mitigation and adaptation policy, agriculture and food security, gender equity and women empowerment. She has published extensively on the design of institutions to encourage resilience and economic approaches to address socio-economic vulnerability to climate change. She has considerable experience working with communities, with particular focus on the developing world, including her native homeland of Bangladesh. She has (co)authored over 20 publications, including journal articles, books and book chapters. She is presently an Editor for the journal Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies and Associate Editor for Food Security. She has served in numerous advisory roles and expert panels including as Advisor of IRRI Gender Research Program (2015-2016) and a member of the impact assessment panel of the Seeds of Life program of the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) (2015-2016).
Research Areas
- Agriculture
- Climate change
- Environmental policy and economics
- Food security
- Gender equity
- Non-market valuation
- Women empowerment
https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/our-people/our-faculty/faculty-profile/sonia-akter
