Dr. Jin Sato is a professor of development studies at the Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo. Professor Sato focuses on the politics of natural resources and foreign aid in the context of Southeast Asia. He is currently a visiting professor at Columbia University Climate School. He served as a visiting professor at the School of Public Policy at Princeton University from 2016-2020. Sato is a former Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Asian Studies (Cambridge University Press) and the ex-president of the Japan Society for International Development (JASID). He is the winner of the Japan Academy Medal in 2013. Sato holds an MPP from the Kennedy School at Harvard University and a PhD in International Relations from the University of Tokyo.
Discussants
Dr. Pamela McElwee is a professor in the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Professor McElwee’s research interests have concerned human adaptation to global environmental change, broadly defined, with particular expertise in biodiversity conservation and climate change in Asia.
Dr. Hieu Phung is Assistant Professor of Vietnamese and Southeast Asian History in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Professor Phung is an environmental historian who investigates the impacts of local culture and statecraft on the preindustrial environment, especially on water and climate.