Robert Chambers Award Recipients

Robert Chambers Award 2023

Dr Danny Marks, Dr. Michelle Ann Miller and Dr. Sujitra Vassanadumrongdee for their paper 'Closing the loop or widening the gap? The unequal politics of Thailand's circular economy in addressing marine plastic pollution.' 

Dr. Danny Marks is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Politics and Policy in the School of Law and Government of Dublin City University. Prior to this position, he was an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the Department of Asian and International Studies of City University of Hong Kong. He also was previously a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia project at the Munk School of Global Affairs of the University of Toronto. Dr. Marks has spent a number of years conducting research and working in Southeast Asia, particularly in the field of environmental governance. He has worked for a number of organizations in the region, including the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Governance Hub, the Rockefeller Foundation, ActionAid and the NGO Forum on Cambodia. Dr. Marks completed his PhD dissertation, An Urban Political Ecology of the 2011 Bangkok Floods, at the University of Sydney. He received his MA in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His research interests are political ecology, environmental justice, climate governance, disaster risk reduction, with a focus on Southeast Asia.

Dr Michelle Miller is an interdisciplinary social scientist working at the science-policy interface of environmental governance. Her current research focuses on how climate research can inform equity-oriented sustainability transitions. This interest has developed through her engagement over the past two decades with the societal and ecological transformation of Southeast Asia. Dr. Miller holds a PhD in political science and has worked since 2010 as a Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. In this role, she has co-developed multi-year research grants on: (a) Climate Governance of Nature-based Carbon Sinks in Southeast Asia (2022 – 2027); and (b) Disaster Governance in Urbanising Asia (2014-2017), funded by Singapore’s Ministry of Education. Previously, she held research and lecturing positions at Deakin University and Charles Darwin University. she has authored or co-authored over 60 academic publications (international journal articles, book chapters and a monograph) on issues of governance, resource distribution, climate change adaptation, social justice, conflict resolution and urbanisation.

Sujitra Vassanadumrongdee is a senior researcher at the Environmental Research Institute, Chulalongkorn University (ERIC), Thailand.

Her areas of expertise are policy and institutional analysis on waste management, economic tools for environmental management, and public participation in environmental management.

During the past seven years, her main research has been related to solid waste management, focusing on plastic waste and food waste, extended producer responsibility, and the circular economy policy and strategy.

She was a project manager for the Chula Zero Waste Initiative, which established the university's waste management system.

At the national level, she is a member of the Plastic and Electronic Waste Management Sub-committee under the National Environmental Board and A member of the Steering Committee on Packaging Management in accordance with the Circular Economy and Extended Producer Responsibility, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment

At the local level, she serves as a member of the Waste Management Policy Committee of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA).

Sujitra holds a doctorate and master’s degree in environmental economics from Hiroshima University, Japan. She completed her Bachelor in Political Science (International Relations) from Chulalongkorn University

Joint Winners Robert Chambers Award 2022

Aditi Bhatia-Kalluri for her paper 'Mapping Trends for Sustainable Economic Development in the Global South: E-commerce as an Online Marketplace for Micro-Entrepreneurs in Rural India.'

Dr. Robert Gillanders and Dr Lisa van der Werff, for their paper 'Corruption Experiences and Attitudes to Political, Interpersonal, and Domestic Violence'. 

Aditi Bhatia-Kalluri is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto. Her Ph.D. research examines mobile phone penetration and usage in the Global South, especially financial inclusion and digital payments. The research focuses on how digital policies shape information practices, such as adopting e-banking and e-commerce for marginalized communities. Her research tracks adaptation to mobile phones by auditing everyday user challenges in cashless transactions and finding gaps that lead to information asymmetry. Aditi earned a Master of Digital Media from Toronto Metropolitan University and B.A. Hons in New Media Studies from the University of Toronto.

Dr. Robert Gillanders is an associate professor of economics at DCU Business School. He is the co-founder and co-director of the DCU Anti-corruption Research Centre (ARC). He is Co-Principal Investigator of the IRC funded project "Corruption, Gender, and Sustainable Development" (COGS).  He has published extensively on the causes and consequences of corruption in journals including Governance, Social Science & Medicine, Public Choice, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation, the Journal of Development Studies, and Small Business Economics.

Dr Lisa van der Werff is an Associate Professor of Organisational Psychology, Director of Doctoral Studies and Co-Director of the Irish Institute of Digital Business at DCU Business School. Her research focuses on trust and investigates the processes underlying relationships between colleagues, people and organisations and people and technology. Lisa has published her work in a range of academic journals (e.g., Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, Organization Science) and practitioner oriented outlets (e.g., Harvard Business Review). She is currently President of FINT (www.fintweb.org), Deputy Editor in Chief of the Journal of Trust Research and was recently admitted to the Young Academy of Ireland in recognition of her research impact. 

Winner Robert Chambers Award 2020

Silvia Masiero and Soumyo Das, for their paper 'Where ICT4D Meets Data Justice: A study of COVID-19 Tracking in India'

Silvia Masiero is an Associate Professor of Information Systems at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. Her research operates within the area of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D), with a focus on the role of digital platforms in socio-economic development processes. She has conducted extensive work on the computerisation of India’s main food security programme, the Public Distribution System (PDS), and on the adoption of ICTs in core aspects of the Indian public sphere including elections, rural employment guarantees and programmes of social protection. Silvia is Secretary of the International Federation for Information Processing IFIP 9.4 Working Group on Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development, a member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), and a member of the Editorial Board at Information Technology for Development.

Soumyo Das is a Ph.D. student in Management at Emlyon Business School, France. His research focusses on organizational use of digital technologies in developing countries, and with a particular emphasis on organizational trust and institutional logics. He is also interested on research in Critical Management Studies and ICT4D. Soumyo engages with the virtual world as /soumyoin. 

Winner of Robert Chambers Award 2018

Mairéad Smith for her paper ‘The  Search for  Meaning  in  Memory  in  the Aftermath of Genocide: The Construction of Êzîdî Identity’

Winner of Robert Chambers Award 2017

Dr. Ibrahim Natil for his paper: International NGOs: Women’s Engagement in Community Peace-building and Development

Contact: dr.natil59@gmail.com

Winner of Robert Chambers Award 2016

Dr. Su-Ming Khoo for her paper “Rethinking development partnerships intellectually: cognitive justice matters"

Contact: suming.khoo@nuigalway.ie

Winner of Robert Chambers Award 2015

Dr. Padraig Carmody for his paper “E-colonisation and the politics of land grabbing in Uganda"
Contact: pcarmody@tcd.ie