Disasters | Displacements | Climate Action
Social Capital and Infrastructures in Tacloban City, the Philippines (2025-present)
​This project aims to explore the influence of social capital on community development in the Philippines, focusing on social trust, norms, and collective action within diverse communities. In collaboration with scholars from Northeastern University, York University, and Eastern Visayas State University, this study will investigate how varying levels of social capital contribute to economic development, disaster resilience, and social cohesion in post-Haiyan resettlement villages in Tacloban City.
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Funded by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
Lived Security Responses to Climate Change in the Philippines (2024-present)
​This project aims to analyze people’s everyday security practices or “lived security” to understand how coastal populations in the Philippines resist, circumvent or hybridise exceptional climate securitisation strategies such as “grey infrastructure” (sea walls) and mass resettlement. As these imposed responses are generally considered maladaptive, we are interested in exploring people’s everyday or mundane actions as they respond to secure their climate futures.
Funded by La Trobe University
This project will develop approaches and tools that foster genuinely collaborative Indigenous/non-Indigenous research partnerships in ways that facilitate Indigenous Peoples reviving and strengthening their Indigenous worldviews, knowledge, and practices and applying them to DRR. The study
collaborates with Orang Asli (Jakun) Indigenous Peoples in the Tasik Chini UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Malaysia.
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Funded by The British Academy
Approaches for Engaging with Indigenous knowledge processes and holders for DRR in Malaysia (2024-present)
Ahon, meaning ‘to rise up’, will capture people’s visions of a ‘good life’ to produce a values-based narrative of climate-resilient development and set out ways to track progress and articulate aspirational goals based on lived realities and local knowledge systems.
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Funded by The British Academy
Promises and Perils of Climate Buffer Infrastructures as Adaptation (Completed)
This project comparatively examined two types of infrastructure projects: (1) hard/grey infrastructure (e.g. seawalls) and (2) natural/green infrastructure (e.g. wetlands, mangroves, marshes) in the Philippines to explore their prospects for just adaptation.
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Funded by The Sydney Environment Institute (SEI) of the University of Sydney
Resettlement as Climate Adaptation in Rural Coastal and Island Communities
(Completed)
This project partnered with a local NGO in the Philippines to investigate the long-term impacts of resettlement as a climate adaptation strategy focusing on rural coastal and island communities in Eastern Samar.
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Funded by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
Climate Gentrification in the Global South (Completed)
This project unpacked the nexus of climate gentrification and climate resettlement, including its mechanisms, processes, and drivers in urban coastal cities.
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Funded by La Trobe University
Surviving and Managing Risks (Completed)
This project critically investigated the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the resilience of disaster-displaced communities and its implications for their long-term disaster recovery in the Philippines. This is my PhD project at HKUST.
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Funded by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Local-Indigenous Knowledge for DRR and Climate Adaptation (Completed)
This project examined the policies, discourses, and practices surrounding the promises and pitfalls of harnessing local, Indigenous, and traditional knowledge for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation.
