This year the first annual Global Week took place at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Global Week is a series of seminars where environmental professionals from around the world will discuss different environmental challenges in South Asia, West and Central Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. On the last day, we had a potluck featuring our various cultures.
Global week was organized by students part of the Nicholas School Student Council (NSSC), the Diverse and Inclusive Community for the Environment (DICE), and the Working Group for the Environment in Latin America (WGELA).
We hope future students make this event a tradition to bring more diverse perspectives to Environmental Management conversations.
Below are the speaker bios and seminar recordings from the first NSOE Global Week:
Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems in West Africa
Dr. Ashwini Sebastian
Watch the seminar here.
Dr. Ashwini Rekha Sebastian is a Senior Agricultural Economist at the World Bank, currently based in Accra, Ghana, where she works on the sustainable development agenda. She has previously worked in the West Africa and Latin America regions. She holds a Ph.D. in Agriculture and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park, with a focus on agricultural, environmental, and development economics. Prior to joining the World Bank, Ashwini worked as an Economist at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO), based in Rome. She has also previously worked with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC.
War in Europe-energy and environment
Dmytro Zlenko
Watch the seminar here.
Dmytro Zlenko is a MEM Class’24 focused on international environmental policy. With academic and professional experience in over 20 countries, he worked on people’s perceptions of climate change during sailing around the world, conducted observations across three oceans, and in practice, learned five languages. During his internship in the Committee on Energy Complex and Energy Security of Ukraine, he assisted in the research of the Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 and its influence on European security.
Environmental Economics-From Theory to Practice in Latin America
Dr. Juan José Miranda
Watch the seminar here.
Dr. Juan Jose Miranda is a Senior Environmental Economist at the World Bank, where he started in 2013. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics at Georgia State University with a focus on environmental, behavioral, and development economics.
Climate Finance & Policy in Latin America and the Caribbean
Dr. Sandra Guzmán Luna
Watch the seminar here.
Dr. Sandra Guzmán Luna is the founder of the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC). She works on tracking climate finance flows and needs, elaborating national strategies on climate finance, and mainstreaming climate change in public finance systems. With over 16 years of experience, she has managed climate finance at the Climate Policy Initiative, consulted for the UNFCCC and was the former General Director of Climate Change Policies at the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of Mexico.
Putting Thermal (Dis)Comfort at the Center of Climate Justice
Dr. Nausheen Anwar
Watch the seminar here.
Dr, Nausheen H. Anwar is the Founder & Director of the Karachi Urban Lab (KUL) and Professor of City & Regional Planning at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi, Pakistan. She focuses on the politics of urban planning and development, urban governance, climate change, and infrastructure in the urban Global South. Her current research looks at the impacts of extreme heat on poor, marginalized populations in informal settlements and adaptation to heat in Karachi – a city of 25 million where 62% live in informal settlements.
Pakistan Floods: A Major Climate Catastrophe
Soman Ui Haq and Zukhruf Amjad
Watch the seminar here.
Soman Ui Haq is a consultant for the Energy and Climate Initiative at GIZ Pakistan for a rapid needs assessment of the emergency response to the Pakistani floods. He also consults for the Pakistan-German Renewable Energy Forum, where he advises on multiple topics, including off-grid energy access, climate finance, and renewable energy transition in Pakistan. Soman is a MEM’22 in the EE concentration and certification in Climate Change Science and Applications.
Zukhruf Amjad is a Program Associate for Pakistan Environment Trust working on climate finance and offsets for renewable energy projects. She also works as a consultant for the World Bank’s Global Energy Unit working on energy transition. She graduated as a MEM from the Nicholas School in Energy and the Environment in 2021.