Career

I am Saatvika Rai, from India, from MESPOM class 2005-07. Currently I am a PhD candidate at the Political Science Department, University of Kansas (USA). I am also a graduate teaching assistant and teach international relations to undergraduate students. My areas of specialization are Public Policy and Comparative Politics, with a minor in Research Methods. My research interests are climate change adaptation and I am keen to explore climate refugees or migration, especially in Africa.

We (Anastasiya Idrisova and Alvin Chandra, Batch 4 2008-2010) are pleased to share our recent publication, “Convention on Biological Diversity: a review of national challenges and opportunities for implementation” in the Biodiversity Conservation Journal.

Njisuh Feka from Batch 3 (2007-2009) is currently volunteering as project development officer for the United Kingdom base charity African Conservation for Development Foundation (ACDEF). In this position, he is principally responsible for identifying and proposing suitable project ideas in the nexus of biodiversity conservation and development in West-Central Africa and participating in the development of fund-raising proposals.

I am in Oxford, working as a research fellow at the Stockholm Enviromental Insitute on climate change adaptation. I focus mainly on ecosystem-based adaptation and processes of robust decision making and adaptive governance. I work in the context of developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia (so lots of traveling to interesting places.

After returning to Hungary, to my home country, for the birth of my son, I continued to work for Greenpeace.

From January to June 2011, I was coordinating Greenpeace's activities during the Hungarian EU Presidency.This meant lots of lobby and expert work, and gathering and filtering loads of information.

I am Quynh Nguyen from Vietnam. I studied Environmental Chemistry at the University of New South Wales, Australia and worked as a technical advisor on improving institutional capacity for water pollution control at Vietnam Environment Protection Agency before joining MESPOM in 2007.

The two-year-journey has been full of great experiences and memories during which I have lived and learnt so much more intensively than ever before. The programme has indeed provided me with in-depth scientific research opportunities (from my 3rd semester and my thesis research in Manchester) in addition to the holistic approach which brings a broader and comprehensive mindset in understanding and handling any specific task in the field.

I am Olena Kiva from Ukraine (MESPOM Batch 3, 2007-2009). Although the situation on the Ukrainian job market is really tough now, I managed to get employed on the next week after the graduation. I am working for the Scientific Engineering Center “Biomass” at the Department for the Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol. This company is one of the key players in the field of bioenergy and joint implementation projects development in Ukraine.

I am Huang He, a MESPOMer in 2007-2009, and I come from China. After working in London for a while, I am back to Beijing and start working for the Energy Research Institute (ERI) at the National Development and Reform Committee of China. ERI is the most important Chinese energy institute; it has a big influence on decision-making process, especially in my field (renewable energy policy), where China’s renewable energy law was drafted. Renewable energy, considered as good for both environment and economy, is still quite new in China and the whole industry is full of uncertainties and challenges.

I am Shahzia from Dhaka, Bangladesh and studied at MESPOM in 2006-2008. After returning home, I was searching for the best possible way that would integrate my prior working experiences, passion and new knowledge I gathered from MESPOM. I found myself greatly interested in building new ideas and sharing knowledge for which academia seemed most-suited. It was a coincidence that I also received calls to join several universities to teach undergraduate students from multiple disciplines.