Indrajit Pal is an associate professor in the Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation and Management (DPMM) Academic program, in Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. Dr. Pal. is Deputy Director of the Research Center "South- and South East Asia Multi-disciplinary Applied Research Network on Transforming Societies of Global South (SMARTS)" in AIT. He has more than 19 years of experience in research, teaching, training, advocacy, and consultancy primarily focused on disaster risk governance, incident command system, hazard and risk assessment, CBDRM, public health risk, disaster resilience, and DRR Education. He served as a faculty member at Centre for Disaster Management at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, India and a former member of the Board of Directors for the Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI), Japan. Dr. Pal is supervising a number of doctoral and master's degree researchers across Asia and Africa in the field of disasterrisk management, resilience and risk governance. Dr. Pal has published 12 books and over 100 academic papers and book chapters. Some of his ongoing research includes disaster resilience and sustainable development education in Asia, risk characterization in Asian Delta communities in the "Living Deltas HUB" of the UK Research and Innovation–Global Challenges Research Fund (UKRI-GCRF) project and the “Climate Resilient Infrastructure for Social Transformation and Adaptation (CRISTA)”- Climate Innovation Challenge, supported by World Bank, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC). Rajib Shaw is a professor in the Graduate School of Media and Governance in Keio University, Japan. He is also Senior Fellow of Institute of Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) Japan and Chairperson of SEEDS Asia and CWS, Japan, two Japanese NGOs. He is also the co-founder of a Delhi (India)-based social entrepreneur startup Resilience Innovation Knowledge Academy (RIKA). Earlier, he was the Executive Director of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) and was a Professor in Kyoto University. His expertise includes disaster governance, community-based disaster risk management, climate change adaptation, urban risk management, and disaster and environmental education. He is Chair of the United Nations Science Technology Advisory Group (STAG) for disaster risk reduction; and also Co-chair of the Asia Science Technology Academic Advisory Group (ASTAAG). He is also CLA (Coordinating Lead Author) for Asia chapter of IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report. He is the editor-in-chief of the Elsevier’s journal “Progress in Disaster Science,” and series editor of Springer book series on disaster risk reduction. He has published more than 45 books and over 300 academic papers and book chapters. Tomonori ICHINOSE is Professor of National University cooperation Miyagi University of Education, Research Institution for Teacher Training and Development, Professor of Disaster Risk Reduction Learning Institute for Educators. He is a Ph.D. holder of Tohoku University major in Educational Politics. He is a graduate of Keio University in Tokyo, Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts and Ph.D. course in 1995. He has been working for teacher education 29 years. He brings extensive experience in the research of teaching and learning of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), Education for International Understanding (EIU) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). He has been aggressively supported many numbers of local schools and communities which address education for sustainable development and promote SDGs 17 goals. His recent research is to analyze the transformation, effectiveness and barriers of the schools that addressed education for sustainable development. He has been working for the Education of Sustainable Education projects with the UNESCO Bangkok and Jakarta, Asia-Pacific Culture Centre for UNESCO and United Nation University. He is Executive Director of Japanese society of ESD, External Examiner of Master of Arts in Education for Sustainability, The Education University of Hong Kong, Deputy Director of Asian Pacific Institution of Education for Sustainable Development, Editorial Board Member of Asia Pacific Journal of Educators and Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia.Yonariza has been working in the field of natural resources management in Indonesia for almost 15 years. He has worked in forest rehabilitation for the Indonesian government, helped identify issues across South East Asia on implementing REDD+ programs, measured the impacts of logging and other land management and analysis work as a consultant across a number of funded programs. His recent research focus is on the payment of ecosystem service in Sumatra Island, Indonesia. He is the co-editor of the book published by Elsevier Redefining Diversity and Dynamics of Natural Resources Management in Asia, Volume 4, The Reciprocal Relationship between Governance of Natural Resources and Socio-Ecological Systems Dynamics in West Sumatra Indonesia in 2016. Takashi Oda is Deputy Director-General of the Learning Institute for Education for Disaster Risk Reduction (LIFE-DRR), which was recently established at Miyagi University of Education (MUE), Sendai, Japan. His recent research particularly focuses on disaster education, school safety and community-based disaster risk reduction. The March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters in Tohoku, Japan, affected many areas of his study and family roots. He served as a visiting associate professor at Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation and Management (DPMM) program of Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand (2015–2017). Prior to his current position, he was Assistant Professor at the Center for Simulation Sciences in OchanomizuUniversity, Tokyo (2012–2013), and a postdoctoral research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (2010–2012). In 2008–2009, he was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship, at which time he conducted his doctoral research at University of California, Berkeley. Earlier, he was on Japan’s foreign service at the Consulate-General of Japan in San Francisco, California, in 2005–2008, where he was a community affairs advisor. He holds a Ph.D. in environmental studies and an M.Sc. in Earth Science from Tohoku University.
