Giovanni Avila-Flores

Lecturer, Autonomous University of Baja California Sur

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Giovanni Ávila-Flores (Gio) obtained his bachelor's degree in Marine Biology at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur (UABCS), Mexico. Later, he did his master's studies in Environment and Resource Management at the Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Later in 2019, he did a research stay in the "Mangrove Ecology" Working Group of the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research in Bremen, Germany. In 2021, he obtained a Ph.D. in Marine and Coastal Sciences from UABCS by presenting a thesis about a comprehensive assessment of mangroves in Baja California Sur, Mexico. On the other hand, he is a member of various global scientific organizations such as the "Ecosystem Services Partnership" and the "Society of Wetland Scientists." He has also held executive positions within some international networks as "Young Ecosystem Services Specialists" (YESS) in the period 2020-2021 and "Early Career Researcher Network of Networks" (ECR NoN) as Chair of the Membership Committee in the period 2022-2023. Also, he has earned national and international prizes and recognitions, highlighting a Certificate of Honor from the UNDP Equatorial Initiative for outstanding volunteer service in 2016 and a Distinction as a Member of the National System of Researchers by the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico in 2022. Finally, last year he began to participate in Future Earth as a member of the Assembly General in the ECR group.

Timothy Balag'kutu

Lecturer, University of Professional Studies

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Timothy A. Balag’kutu is a Lecturer in the Centre for Peace and Security Research, University of Professional Studies, Accra in Ghana. He is also an Earth System Governance (ESG) Research Fellow, and a Society for Freshwater Science Headwaters Leadership Academy Fellow. He holds a PhD in Global Governance and Human Security from the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston. He is a multidisciplinary scholar/researcher in global policy and governance, and (human) security, with regional expertise in Africa. His research interests include peace, conflict and climate (in)security, environmental peacebuilding, plastic and chemicals pollution, and global sustainability governance with focus on indigenous African knowledge and governance systems. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in high impact publications. He reviews for several scholarly journals, including Environment, Development and Sustainability; and serves on the Editorial Board of Canadian Journal of African Studies and the ORCID Researcher Advisory Council. He consults for national and international institutions and contributes to policy discussions across levels. Among others, he contributed to the Scientific and Technological Community Major Group Position Paper for the 2022 High-Level Political Forum on SDGs, and currently serves on the Future Earth Editorial Board for European Union’s Horizon Scanning on Biodiversity and Climate Science. He is an avid early career advocate and engages in initiatives through such professional communities as the ECR-NON, ESG Early Career Committee, Headwaters Leadership Academy, and Environmental Peacebuilding Association. Tim is passionate about and committed to early career development and representation in sustainability science, policy, and practice initiatives.

Xiaoyu Fang

Co-Executive Director (Communication & Engagement), Future Earth Coasts

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Dr. Xiaoyu Fang is a marine scientist and sustainability advocate with over 15 years of experience in environmental research, spanning glaciers to coastal ecosystems. She holds a PhD from the University of Plymouth and Ghent, with expertise in marine ecosystem health, biodiversity modeling, and ocean observation. Xiaoyu has dedicated her career to advancing global sustainability through science-policy engagement, international collaboration, and leadership development. She is particularly passionate about empowering underrepresented voices, supporting women scientists, and fostering the next generation of leaders driving change in environmental science. As Co-Executive Director of Future Earth Coasts, she oversees communication and engagement, bridging science, policy, and communities to promote inclusive, sustainable solutions. She leads cross-cutting initiatives like Empowering Future Leadership and the Meta-Network and co-founded the Cyber-Coasts, Just Transitions, and Tour de Coasts working groups to advance coastal sustainability through innovative research and equitable action. She also serves on the Expert Group of the Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre, the Science Steering Committee for the Sustainability Initiative in the Marginal Seas of South and East Asia, and is a member of the ISC Expert Network for the UN Ocean Conference 2025. Previously, Xiaoyu worked at the European Marine Observation and Data Network Secretariat, where she coordinated international projects like the EMODnet Partnership for China and Europe and contributed to Horizon 2020 projects such as iAtlantic and Blue-Cloud, which strengthened cross-border collaboration in marine research. With a vision for a future driven by equitable decision-making, Xiaoyu is committed to empowering the next generation to create a thriving and sustainable planet.

Faten Attig-Bahar

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Tunisia Polytechnic School, University of Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia

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Faten Attig-Bahar is a Postdoctoral researcher Associate at the University of Carthage, Tunisia Polytechnic School. She is also an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow for the International Climate Protection Program hosted at the University of Rostock, Germany (2019/2020). Besides, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Oldenburg, For Wind Research Center for nine months between 2016 and 2017. Faten has rich expertise in Renewable energy technologies and implementation, Renewable energy project valuation and financing options, Climate finance, Renewable energy in emerging markets and Energy Efficiency. Faten is serving on several continental committees and is holding several responsible positions in various African and international NGOs including: The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Research Board on Weather, Climate, Water and the Environment, and Future Earth: 1) Steering committee member of the Future Earth Water-Energy-Food Nexus Knowledge-Action-Network, 2) North Africa coordinator of the Future Earth African community, 3) Future Earth Implementation Team member 4) Chair of Future Earth Review Committee for the global secretariat hubs and 5) Future Earth Assembly. She is also an Executive Committee member of the Young Earth System Scientists and the Vice President for North Africa for African Youth Union for Change (AYU4C), an organization focusing on young leaders in Africa and the mission is to support voluntary work and networking activities to promote young professionals in Africa. Faten led many initiatives for young researchers and scientists and co-hosted several (online) seminars and workshops. Faten was also a reviewer of the IPCC report SOD-WGI-AR6 and SOD-WGII-AR6 and supported the work of ECR group review of the IPCC report organized by APECS, MRI, PAGES ECN, PYRN and YESS. On the other hand, Faten is an author and has published 19 books for children in Arabic language. She has received several awards as an outstanding youth author in Tunisia.

Xuemei Bai

Urban Knowledge-Action Network Steering Committee

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Xuemei Bai is a Distinguished Professor of Urban Environment and Human Ecology and an Australian Research Council’s Laureate Fellow at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University. Her research interests include: understanding the structure, function, processes and evolution of urban social ecological systems, the drivers and impacts of urbanization, urban metabolism, cities and climate change, urban sustainability experiments an transition, and more recently on Anthropocene futures and Earth system boundaries. Prof. Bai is a member of the Earth Commission, leading its Working Group 5 on methods of cross scale translation from planetary limits to cities and businesses. In the past, she served as Vice Chair of IHDP, and as an inaugural member of Future Earth Science Committee leading the development of its Urban Knowledge-Action Network. Prof. Bai is a Fellow of Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia since 2017, and was named as one of the World's 100 Most Influential People in Climate Change Policy in 2019 and 2022. She is the Laureate of the Volvo Environment Prize 2018, and the Global Economy Prize 2021.

Taikan Oki

Special Advisor to the President, Professor, The University of Tokyo

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Prof. Oki received his Ph.D in Civil Engineering at The University of Tokyo in 1993. Prof. Oki's most important and wide-reaching work has been in demonstrating the connections between the hydrologic cycle, renewable water resources, the global economy, and sustainability culminating in his 2006 paper in Science. Prof. Oki has demonstrated the tight nexus among local hydrologic sustainability, climate, and macroscale socioeconomic pressures. As a citizen of an island nation highly dependent on the import of natural resources and foodstuffs, he has demonstrated clearly how the international exchange of "virtual water", that needed to produce agricultural and other commodities traded on the global market, can exacerbate vulnerabilities in water-poor regions. Early in his career Prof. Oki developed a global river routing dataset for climate applications, Total Runoff Integrating Pathways (TRIP), which continues to be widely used around the world to study large-scale hydrology and the water cycle. It is a part of many climate models including those used in assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). He was one of the coordinating lead authors for Chapter 3 “Freshwater Resources” of the IPCC WGII AR5, and a review editor for Chapter 8 “Poverty, Livelihoods and Sustainable Development” of IPCC WGII AR6. He has been the recipient of numerous awards such as the Biwako Prize for Ecology in 2011, and the Japan Academy Medal in 2008. He is the first Japanese AGU Fellow in its Hydrology Section with quotes "For interdisciplinary research and leadership bridging hydrology, climate, and sustainability through numerical modeling and scientific analysis." He became a full member of the Club of Rome and the Science Council of Japan in October 2020, and he won the 2021 International Hydrology Prize (Dooge medal).

Joon Kim

Vice-chair, Future Earth Korea National Committee

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Wendy Steele

Co-Chair, Future Earth Australia Steering Committee

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Wendy is a Professor of Sustainability and Urban Governance at RMIT University and co-chair of Future Earth Australia (FEA). Committed to the need for urgent action on climate change, her research focuses on the nature of cities and the role of urban citizens as planetary stewards with an emphasis on rethinking critical urban infrastructure, responsible practices and climate justice. Recent books include Planning Wild Cities: Human-Nature Relationships in the Urban Age (Routledge 2020), Quiet Activism: Climate action at the local scale (Palgrave 2021), The Sustainable development Goals and Higher Education (Palgrave 2022), Hot Cities: A Transdisciplinary Agenda (Edward Elgar 2023) and The Routledge Handbook on Grassroots Climate Activism(2024). Wendy is a founding member of the Planetary Civics Inquiry (PCI) working in collaboration with others to support and promote the governance of shared bioregions and more regenerative urban futures.

Lucas Enrico

Researcher/Professor, National Scientific and Technological Research Council (CONICET), and National University of Córdoba (Argentina)

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I am a biologist based at the Multidisciplinary Institute of Plant Biology (IMBIV) in Córdoba, Argentina. There I conduct my research focused on the relationships between functional diversity of plant communities and ecosystem services provision, under different land use scenarios. I participate in different international thematic networks on ecological research, and also in interdisciplinary research projects, particularly in Latin America, carried out by the DiverSus Nucleus. I have participated in Future Earth as a member of the Development Team of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, a Knowledge-Action Network of people and organizations working to address nexus challenges. I was also a Science Officer (Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean) of ecoSERVICES, a FutureEarth global research Project. I am a Professor at the graduate level in the National University of Córdoba, and at the posgraduate level in the National Universitiesof Córdoba and Catamarca (Argentina).

Yulia Sugandi

Educator and Researcher, the Homeland Earth Ambassador, Center for Transdisciplinary and Sustainability Sciences, IPB University, Indonesia

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Yulia Sugandi is an Anthropologist and Sociologist with advanced research methodologies on social and human sciences and social policies. She has a PhD from the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Muenster, Germany, a MSc from the University of Eastern Finland, and a Bachelor's degree from Gadjah Mada University. Yulia actively promotes socio-ecological justice through her work as a development professional and as a board member of various projects. She combines this with teaching and researching gender justice, social equity and inclusive development, human ecology and climate change. Yulia collaborates with stakeholders to support organic social change and systems transformation. She worked alongside the Minister of Environment and Forestry as part of the editorial team for the Trilogy books and policy brief on Indonesia Facing Climate Change. Throughout her career, she consistently linked scientific research and policymaking. The curriculum module developed by Yulia on equity and social inclusion, known as green empathetic leadership, has been adopted by the National Public Administration. She effectively employs mixed methods in developing relevant and sustainable policies and programs for government agencies and the United Nations. Yulia advocates for ecological reflexivity, resilience thinking, contextual assessment, the decolonization of knowledge, and collective social learning to attain planetary justice.

Sharachchandra Lele

Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Environment & Development, ATREE & Adjunct Faculty, IISER Pune

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Sharachchandra (Sharad) Lele is currently the Distinguished Fellow in Environmental Policy & Governance at the Centre for Environment and Development of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) in Bengaluru. He is also Honorary Professor at Shiv Nadar University Delhi, where he is helping set up a new programme in Sustainability and Public Policy. Sharad has degrees IIT Bombay, IISc Bangalore, and UC Berkeley. He co-founded the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment & Development in Bengaluru in 2001, and led it till 2009, when it merged with ATREE. Sharad is an inter- and trans-disciplinary environmental researcher, keenly interested in the concepts of sustainability and sustainable and equitable development and their practical translation in the forest, water and energy sectors. His main interests are forest governance, landuse change, urban water management, and the environmental regulation of large infrastructure projects. He is Founder-Member and past President of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics, and has served as a Board member of the International Society for Ecological Economics, and serves or has served on the editorial boards of many interdisciplinary environmental journals. He is currently a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Land Programme. He is also heavily engaged in policy-related work at local, provincial and national levels in India, and is currently leading a major action-research programme on forest rights in central India.

Maria Uhle

Program Director for International Activities Institution: US National Science Foundation

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Maria Uhle currently serves as the Program Director for International Activities in the Directorate for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation, where she develops mechanisms and agreements to foster international collaboration for global environmental change research through the Belmont Forum, the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) and Future Earth. She is Co-Chair of the Belmont Forum, Chair of US Future Earth Board and Chair of the Executive Council of the IAI. She works with other US federal agencies through the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) where she is the National Science Foundation’s Principal to the Sub-committee on Global Change Research and co-Chair of the International Activities, Interagency Working Group of USGCRP. Prior to her appointment at NSF, she served as an International Affairs Officer in the Office of International and Academic Affairs (OIAA) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where she developed programs to foster research collaboration with NIST’s international partners from countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Prior to working at NIST, she served as Program Director for the National Academy of Sciences Polar Research Board and the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. She directed several committees that addressed topics relevant to the Arctic and Antarctic, and focused on reanalysis of historical climate data, and climate projections based on emission scenarios. Before joining the NAS, Dr. Uhle served on the faculty at the University of Tennessee in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Her background includes degrees in environmental science and geology, and her research focused on investigating the fate of organic matter and contaminants in atmospheric, surface water and soil environments from urban areas and the polar deserts of Antarctica.

Deliang Chen

August Röhss Chair Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg

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Deliang Chen is a meteorologist by training and a renowned climate researcher. His research includes Earth System Science and global environmental change, climate dynamics and modeling, and atmospheric circulation. He focuses on recent and future regional climate changes and their impacts on water, ecosystem, environment, and agriculture. Currently, he mainly works with climate and environmental changes over the Third Pole (Tibetan Plateau) region and its surrounding, with a focus on the water cycle. Deliang is an elected Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg, the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, as well as a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has served on numerous international and national committees and boards, as well as advised various governmental, intergovernmental, and international non-governmental bodies including funding agencies. Previous appointments include Director of the Gothenburg Atmospheric Science Center and Executive Director of International Council for Science (ICSU). Recent examples include Chair of the Nomination Committee of the Stockholm Water Prize; Board member of The Future Earth Sweden Foundation; Chair of the Earth Science Division of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; and member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of Stockholm Resilience Centre as well as Bolin Centre’s External Science Advisory Group. He also acts as a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group I of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report and serves as an editor for several international scientific journals. Recently, he was listed in the @Reuters Hot List of top climate scientists in the world and awarded the H. M. The King's Medal in the 8th size with the Order of the Seraphim ribbon for outstanding contributions to Swedish and international climate research.

Gordon McBean

Professor Emeritus, Western University

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Prudence Makhura

NRF Executive Director: International Grants and Partnerships

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Dr. Prudence Makhura is currently the executive director of international grants and partnerships at the National Research Foundation (NRF) South Africa. In this capacity, she is responsible for unlocking international research and innovation funding opportunities and leveraging additional funding for the South African National System of Innovation (NSI). She does this through the management of research grants with international partners (i.e. at bi-, tri-, and multi-lateral levels), the private sector, development aids, and state-owned enterprises. Dr Makhura serves on the Advisory Board for the Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE), Co-Chairs the Global Research Council (GRC) Multilateral Engagement Working Group (MEL-WG), and is South Africa’s National Contact Point for both the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and the European Research Council (ERC). She has previously held different portfolios within the South African Higher Education, Research, and Innovation Sector. These include working for the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) managing the higher education partnerships within the African continent (e.g. AU, SADC, COMEDAF, ADEA, AAU etc.), and Universities South Africa (USAf) being responsible for strengthening the Higher Education Sector’s Research, Innovation and Technology capabilities; and international and continental collaborations. Prior to joining USAf, Dr Makhura was a Manager for the Higher Education Quality Committee of the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and a Junior Researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and the Centre for Sociological Research (CSR) based at the University of Johannesburg. She holds a Doctorate of Management in Technology and Innovation with the DaVinci Institute for Technology Management.