PEOPLE
Online international workshop on
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
a system based approach towards Sustainability
Rahul Mehrotra is an architect, urbanist and educator, Founder Principal of RMA Architects and is Professor of Urban Design and Planning at the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Mehrotra has designed projects that range from recycling urban land and master planning in Mumbai to the design of art spaces, boutiques, weekend houses, factories, social institutes and office buildings across India – thereby engaging diverse issues, multiple constituencies and varying scales: from interior design and architecture to urban design, conservation and planning. He studied at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad graduated with a Master’s Degree in Urban Design with distinction from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. Apart from his engagement with the design of buildings, Mehrotra has been actively involved in civic and urban affairs in Mumbai, having served on commissions for historic preservation and environmental issues, with various neighborhood groups. He was the Executive Director (1994–2004) of the Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), where he is now a Trustee and has taught at the University of Michigan (2003–2007) and at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at MIT (2007–2010). Mehrotra has written and lectured extensively on issues to do with architecture, conservation and urban planning in Mumbai and India.
Prof. Shaleen Singhal
Professor and Dean (Research and Partnerships)
TERI School of Advanced Studies
New Delhi, India
Dr Shaleen Singhal is Professor and Dean of Research and Partnerships at TERI School of Advanced Studies. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK and had been a Visiting Fulbright Fellow at Yale University, US. He works on themes such as sustainable smart cities, climate change, sustainable consumption, redevelopment, public policy and planning and has led several multi-disciplinary research and consultancy assignments with a focus on India and other developing countries. He is an architect-planner with a globally awarded PhD from Ulster University. He contributes actively to doctoral programmes at leading architecture and planning schools in India.
Prof. Blaine Brownell
Director,
School of Architecture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
United States
Prof. Blaine Brownell is Professor and Director of the School of Architecture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and an architect and researcher of emergent materials and applications. A former Fulbright scholar to Japan, he has authored eight books on advanced and sustainable materials for architecture. Brownell was elevated to the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows in 2020. An architect dedicated to materials research and education, Brownell has influenced architects’ capacity to evaluate emerging materials and employ new material applications that are technologically, environmentally, and aesthetically innovative. He has contributed significant scholarship on emerging material technologies and trends to deepen our understanding of how new materials transform the functional capacity, design potential, and environmental performance of buildings. His four-volume Transmaterial series (2006, 2008, 2010, 2017) catalogs materials that have the most significant potential to redefine our physical environment. The Royal Institute of British Architects nominated Transmaterial for an international book award in 2007, and the American Society of Landscape Architects selected Transmaterial Next as one of the Best Books of 2017.
Dr Lucy Chamberlin
Post Doctoral Research Fellow
Business School
University of Exeter, United Kingdom
Lucy joined the Business School in 2021 to work with the UKRI NICER programme, specifically on developing a Knowledge Platform including work on longitudinal case studies and a qualitative synthesis of circular methods and frameworks for the Circular Economy Hub. From 2017-2020 she conducted doctoral research at the Department of Design, NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, which used design approaches and methodologies to explore ways of engaging consumers and transforming consumption as part of a circular economy. Lucy has an interdisciplinary background spanning English Literature and Environmental Technology and has also worked with the circular economy field outside academia, as business analyst at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013) and research /programme manager for the RSA Great Recovery (2014-16). Through the latter role and her PhD research in particular she has also been concerned with action research and taking a design approach to public engagement. She has given lectures and workshops at NTNU, the Royal College of Art, UAL and the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge and in 2019 she created an exhibition called Future Consumer using activist and speculative design methodologies which is now on display in the Science Museum, Trondheim.
Dr. Binumol Tom
Professor, Department of Architecture
Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology
Kottayam, Kerala, India.
Dr. Binumol Tom is a Conservation Architect and an enthusiastic Heritage Activist. Having graduated from the College of Engineering, Trivandrum in 1994, she pursued her Masters in Architectural Conservation from School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. She further went on to take a Doctorate in Architecture from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad.
She has authored books and has written chapters in various national and international books. Dr. Tom has many peer-reviewed papers and articles in academic journals, Professional Journals, Refereed Conference Proceedings, has many Presentations to her credit and has deliberated in various international and national platforms in the capacity of an academician as well as heritage activist.
She has won awards and is deeply into writing, travelling, painting, reading and heritage mapping. She is currently posted as Professor in Architecture at Department of Architecture, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology (Government Engineering College) Kottayam.
Isaac Ortega Alvarado is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Design of NTNU—Norwegian University of Science and Technology—where he is researching the topic of the Circular Economy under the umbrella of design for sustainability and social transformations. This research focuses on the implications of the Circular Economy for future everyday lives and design practices by using qualitative research methods.
He has academic qualifications in communication sciences (University of Costa Rica) and industrial design engineering (Costa Rica Institute of Technology and Anadolu University, Turkey).
Mo Smit is an architect and affiliated as a teacher and researcher with Architectural Engineering at the Faculty of Architecture & the Built Environment of Delft University of Technology. Together with colleagues and students, she researches and develops solutions for a circular built environment, focusing on the innovation of bio-based construction methods and processes. As a result of her activities in Indonesia she developed a passion for vernacular architecture, local building cultures and community-based sustainability practices. In the Netherlands Mo recently initiated Bouwtuin, a foundation which develops solutions for the architectural application of natural building materials from the region.
Dr. ir. E.M. (Els) Leclercq
Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment
TU Delft, Netherlands
Els Leclercq (PhD) is an urban researcher, designer and teacher with extensive experience both in academic research projects and in practice through her design studio. Within her research and design projects she predominantly focuses on the transition to circular, sustainable, smart and shared cities and how new forms of collaboration, including citizen’s engagement, can accelerate this transition. She is particularly interested in the role of public space and the public sphere in such processes. Els is an experienced lecturer and speaker and is author of a number of published articles, blogs, and books.
Shiva Susarla is the Founder-Director of RENERGii, a Singaporean innovation firm making Asian cities Zero Waste, Zero Pollution and Zero Carbon urban spaces. He has a deep passion for building and scaling ideas through urban circular economy principles and lean innovation. Circular Cities Asia (CCAsia) is the region's first innovation and knowledge platform to make our cities circular — smart, liveable and sustainable. CCAsia’s approach is to work with smaller cities, towns and ecosystems that mirror life in large urban centres. We connect community members with innovators to identify circular opportunities that are efficient and affordable — driving employment, economic growth, social improvement and the regeneration of natural systems. At RENERGii, we apply a lean, repeatable innovation process combined with circular economy principles to increase the likelihood of success for innovators. Among other projects, we also run RENERGii Ventures, our venture studio focused on Food, Feed and AgTech in Asian cities. RENERGii’s portfolio includes startups ranging from Urban Tiller, which is a farm to table platform for fresh produce to FeedWerkz and Insectifii, which are engaged in valorizing low quality food waste streams into high quality alternative proteins for the feed industry.
Dr. Shalini Sharma
CEO, Sanshodhan & Founder Director
Global Institute for Circular Economy & SDGs India.
Dr Shalini Sharma, with doctorate in Environment science, management & policy and an Humboldt University, Columbia University and Oxford alumna is the founder of disruptive, globally recognised digital-circular economy model innovation company - Sanshodhan An E-Waste Exchange. Her innovation i.e. ”tech-based Circular Economy [ E) model for e-waste management sector” is recognised as "Highly Commended The Circulars 2019 by World Economic Forum, Davos”. Sanshodhan has also won "Global SDG Challenge’, awarded by Responsible Finance and Investment, United Kingdom and DDCAP, Abu Dhabi. Her innovation is published widely by WEF Annual publication, IISD, ReCP-Net UNIDO, GGKP and many more international organizations. She has also founded India’s first ‘Circular Electronics Alliance’ (CEA), where businesses and organizations can join the CEA to receive guidance/ advisory to ease out transition from linear to circular. Dr Sharma has also founded Global Institute for Circular Economy and SDGs (NGO), focussing on capacity building, awareness, R&D and more, for enabling the transition from linear to circular development and growth. Dr Sharma is recognised as ‘Digital Women’, awarded She The people TV at Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), in Nov. 2018 and was featured in CNBC TV18, Young Turk, Rajya Sabha TV and many more media channels. She wore various hats in her career path— as mentor startups, team leader, Head of centre for climate change, Environment management consultant, Network & coalition builder, Lecturer and researcher. She initiated her career as a researcher at National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), CSIR, GoI. During her 13years of post-Ph.D. she gained expertise on Environmental Impact Assessment and Management plans, climate change, resource efficiency and cleaner production, circular economy and served as Consultant to State Governments and United Nations; and as RINGO Foal Point at COP 17, COP18, COP19 UNFCCC meetings.
Dr. Surender Singh
Dept. of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
Dr. Surender Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, specialization of Transportation Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), Chennai, India. He completed his Ph.D. at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India, in 2018, where he worked extensively on the valorization of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP: organic waste from bituminous/asphalt pavements) for Cement Concrete Pavement application. His dissertation on RAP for Sustainable Concrete Pavements had received the prestigious Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) Innovative Project National Award in 2019. Surender obtained his Bachelors in Civil Engineering from State Government College, DCRUST Murthal, India in 2013 and went to pursue M.Tech in Transportation Engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India (2013-2015). His Master’s dissertation topic was related to the design of Cement Concrete Pavements, the findings of which also earned the prestigious Indian Roads Congress (IRC) Bihar P.W.D. National Medal in 2017. Presently, Surender is working on different aspects of Concrete Pavements such as Valorization of Recycled Materials, Design & Monitoring of Concrete Pavements, Roller Compacted Concrete, and Rural Roads. In total, he has published more than 25 dedicated scientific articles on sustainable cement concrete mixes in various international Science Citation Indexed journals. Besides, Surender is an executive board member in Indian Concrete Institute (ICI) Chennai and is currently serving as the guest associate editor for the international journal of Frontiers in the Built Environment. Currently, he is a member of RILEM's first-ever Youth Council (representing South Asian counties) and also holding the Vice-Chair position for the same.
Prof. Nikhil Bugalia
Dept. of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
Nikhil Bugalia is currently an Assistant Professor at the Building Technology and Construction Management division under the Civil Engineering department of IIT Madras. He graduated in Civil Engineering in 2013 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and had subsequently joined Fractal Analytics as a Senior Business Analyst. Post two years, he joined The University of Tokyo, Japan in 2015 to commence his Masters research in Civil Engineering. His research under the guidance of Dr. Koichi Maekawa examined the performance of Reinforced Concrete beams under long-term sustained loads. On completion, in 2017 he started his doctoral research focusing on the safety management of the Japanese High-Speed Rail, in the University of Tokyo under Dr. Kazumasa Ozawa. His doctoral research led to the development of a novel System Dynamics based simulation tool for guiding organizational policy for improving "near-miss" reporting behaviour of employees. Additionally, he identified a novel accident mechanism at organizational and regulatory level for Japanese High Speed Railways. His collaborative research projects had led to associations with the Asian Development Bank Institute, Tokyo, Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and East Japan Railway company. His teaching engagements spans across the Saitama University, National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies and The University of Tokyo. He currently serves as the secretary to the special interest group on "High-Speed Rail: Policy, Investments, and Impacts" for World Conference on Transport Research Society. With his latest position at IIT Madras, he is developing further on his research interests such as safety management for Railways and Construction sectors in India, as well as on broader areas of operations management of infrastructure projects.
Mr. Andrés Oliva-Lozano
Research Analyst
Ellen MacArthur Foundation
United Kingdom
Andres Oliva Lozano is a Research Analyst at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. He most recently contributed to one of the Foundation's latest reports, The Nature Imperative: How the circular economy tackles biodiversity loss.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Andres contributed to the Circular Economy Agendas from PACE (Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy). He has an academic background in sustainability and urban design (Leiden University and TU Delft).