Rafael Lembi, PhD

My goal as a scholar is to co-create transformative research that contributes to advancing our collective understanding on how sustainability transformations happen or could happen, while also contributing to community-led change processes.

My research agenda is grounded on a reflexive research practice and is particularly attentive to justice and equity dimensions of transformations.

I specialize in the design, facilitation and evaluation of transdisciplinary processes of knowledge co-production. 

Due to my interdisciplinary training in the natural and social sciences, I am able to engage in productive dialogues across diverse epistesmologies and disciplinary frameworks. My lived experiences and fieldwork also taught me the value and relevance of engaging with diverse knowledge systems. 

Methodologically, I am an experienced process facilitator and qualitative researcher. Case studies, place-based research and literature reviews are common approaches in my work.

For specific areas of expertise, consult my publications section.

Currently, I am in the last year of my PhD at the Department of Community Sustainability, Michigan State University (defense expected in April 2026). My dissertation is a transdisciplinary research project, conducted in collaboration with the Department of Community Infrastructure at NGO "Projeto Saúde e Alegria," the Renewable Energy Laboratory at Federal University of Western Pará, leaders of six traditional and Indigenous communities in the lower Tapajós River region, and practitioners and activists involved with the Energy & Communities Network (Rede Energia & Comunidades).

My dissertation focuses on the Brazilian Amazonia and consists of three independent studies:

(1) In the first study, I examine energy transitions in the Brazilian Amazon (Santarém, Pará), analyzing how off-grid Indigenous and traditional communities experience access to photovoltaic energy systems, its impacts, and possibilities for more just and decolonial energy transitions. 

(2) In the second study, I assess the social-ecological resilience of Amazonian households and two bioeconomy initiatives to an extreme Amazonian drought (2023-2024). 

(3) In the third study, I analyze how a self-organized network of practitioners and activists mobilizes power and coordinates actions to concretely effectuate changes in federal policies that advance access to electricity in Amazonia.