Leveraging science, technology, and satellite imagery to investigate resource exploitation and environmental crime
Jon Unruh, PhD.
McGill University
Jon Unruh, PhD. is a professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University in Montreal. He has over 25 years of experience in developing and implementing research, policy and practice on war-affected land and property rights in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and has published widely on these topics. His specialty is housing, land and property (HLP) restitution processes in war-affected scenarios. Most recently he has assisted the UN in HLP restitution and evaluation programmes in Sri Lanka, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. He is currently working on a digital media approach for mass HLP restitution claims for refugees and internally dislocated persons in Syria and Iraq. Dr. Unruh has also conducted research and policy work regarding in, Darfur, Liberia, Somalia, Mozambique, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, Madagascar, Cambodia, Angola, Cameroon, Jordan, Colombia, Peru, Zanzibar, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. He has worked with the UN, The World Bank, USAID, DFID, and other multilateral and bilateral donors and NGOs.
Indra Overland
Centre for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
Indra Overland is a Research Professor and Head of the Centre for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). His publications include Public Brainpower: Civil Society and Natural Resource Management (2018), The Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index: A method to rank heterogeneous extractive industry companies for governance purposes (2021), and Russian Oil Companies in an Evolving World: The Challenge of change (2020). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and has been cited in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Associated Press, Bloomberg, BBC World Service, CBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Times Literary Supplement, Hokkaido Shimbun, Toronto Star, Het Financieele Dagblad, Radio Free Europe and Politiken.
Roman Vakulchuk
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)
Roman Vakulchuk is a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in Oslo and holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from Jacobs University Bremen in Germany. His main major research areas are economic transition, trade, energy, climate change, natural resource management, and investment climate. Vakulchuk has served as project leader in research projects organized by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the Global Development Network, OECD, the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) and others. In 2013, Vakulchuk was awarded the Gabriel Al-Salem International Award for Excellence in Consulting. Recent publications include ‘Sharing the Spoils: Winners and Losers in the Belt and Road Initiative in Myanmar’ (2020), ‘Renewable Energy and Geopolitics: A Review’ (2020), ‘Myanmar’s Attractiveness for Investment in the Energy Sector: A Comparative International Perspective’ (2017).
Thomas B. Fischer
University of Liverpool (UK)
Thomas B. Fischer (Ph.D., Dipl-Geogr, FIEMA, FHEA), has over 30 years of international practice, research, and training, as well as teaching experience in Impact Assessment, including SEA, EIA, Sustainability Assessment, Health in Impact Assessments, and others. He is Professor and Head of the Environmental Assessment and Management Research Centre at the University of Liverpool (UK) as well as Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Health in Impact Assessments. He is also an Extraordinary Professor at North-West University, South Africa, and an Honorary Staff Member at Berlin Institute of Technology, Germany. Thomas has written and edited 10 books and has published over 100 refereed journal articles and numerous book chapters, as well as other documents, including impact assessment guidance. documents, including impact assessment guidance.
Eoghan Darbyshire
Conflict and Environment Observatory
Eoghan is a researcher at the Conflict and Environment Observatory, where he uses the ecosystem of open source information, from earth observation data to social media reports, to robustly research, monitor, characterise and communicate the environmental dimensions of conflict. Eoghan has an academic background in air pollution research, conducting in-situ and remote sensing measurements in order to characterise rapidly changing environments - Delhi, the Arctic, the Arabian Peninsula and the Amazon rainforest. He holds a PhD in atmospheric physics from the University of Manchester, where he also completed an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science and worked as a post-doctoral researcher.