Lecturer

Akiyuki Kawasaki is a Professor at the Institute for Future Initiatives (IFI), the University of Tokyo (UTokyo), specializing in climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction for resilience.Kawasaki aims to strengthen societal resilience in countries of the Global South and contribute to reducing poverty and social inequality by reducing the impacts of water-related disasters, including floods. Building on the long-standing body of research on poverty and development in the humanities and social sciences, he focuses on water-related disasters and use analytical approaches from natural science and engineering to examine how they contribute to poverty and widening inequalities. He also seeks to translate his findings into practice by informing policy formulation, including decisions on flood protection investments. As part of this work, he quantitatively evaluates the broader socioeconomic spillover effects of past flood protection investments in Japan.Before joining the University of Tokyo, Kawasaki conducted research at Yokohama National University, United Nations University, Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, and Harvard University in the US. He is also an affiliating professor at the Department of Civil Engineering at the School of Engineering, and the Digital Observatory Research Initiative at the University of Tokyo.