Debraj is currently an Assistant Professor at the Computational Science Lab at the University of Amsterdam. He has a strong passion for understanding how cities ‘emerge’ due to uncoordinated self-organisation and how inequality is shaped in this era of rapid urbanisation. His past research has advanced knowledge of multidimensional poverty traps. His research presented the first step towards integrated planning tools that uses a complex systems approach in the management of slums using an unique participatory survey and an agent-based model Dynaslum.
Debraj’s current research objective is to understand the dynamics of societal adaptation and resilience to climate change. It forms a solid basis for further exploration of poverty traps across a range of climate change adaptation (CCA) cases. The ambition of his future research is to develop methods that incorporate socio-economic dynamics and provide new theoretical insights into social tipping points in CCA. Specifically, Debraj attempts to understand the longer-term effects of climate shocks on households? Under what conditions will shocks push households into poverty traps from which recovery may not be possible?
As a research fellow at the 4TU, Debraj will realise his scientific ambitions through the following collaborations:
- Collaborate with Prof. dr. Tatiana Filatova on a three year project starting January 2022.The project aims to understanding how CCA shapes societal resilience using the concept of poverty traps using spatially explicit models.
- Collaborate with Asli Mutlu (PhD candidate at TUD) and Prof. dr. Tatiana Filatova on understanding the distributional impact of nature-based solutions and community resilience to flooding.
- Organize workshops in collaborations with members of 4TU.RE. Together with Prof.dr. Tatiana Filatova, Debraj will organize a workshop in Spring 2022 funded by the KNAW bringing together eminent researchers in the field of resilience, CCA and poverty traps.
- Explore new collaborations/grants with members of 4TU.RE in the domain of inequality and climate change and to measure societal resillience in response to stressors.
Debraj has a strong passion for understanding how cities ‘emerge’ due to uncoordinated self-organization and how inequality is shaped in this era of rapid urbanization. His current research focuses on understanding the dynamics of poverty traps and on the development of novel computational methods for designing poverty alleviation pathways through regime-shifts. His previous research presented the first step towards a new generation of computational tools that uses complex systems theory and participatory demographic surveys in the management of informal settlements on the Global South. At the 4TU Resilient Engineering center, He applies resilience thinking to understand the nexus between climate change and poverty traps - whether climate change could widen or deepen poverty traps. He is also interested in quantifying resilience in the context of complex adaptive system.
I was a Young Fellow in the 4TU.DeSIRE programme.