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Shirin Malekpour

Associate Professor in Sustainable Development Governance, Monash University

Shirin Malekpour is a social scientist with expertise in strategic planning and governance for sustainable development. She has been Chief Investigator in multiple transdisciplinary research projects focusing on infrastructure planning, transformative adaptation, futures thinking, scenario planning under deep uncertainty, collaborative governance and localising the SDGs.

In 2020, Shirin was appointed by the UN Secretary-General to a scientific advisory role and as one of the 15 members of the Independent Group of Scientists tasked with writing the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report. In 2018, she was recognised as one of the top 25 young scientists in the world in the field of sustainable development and received the international Green Talents award.

She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy – flagship publication of the C40 initiative. She also co-leads a working group on sub-national SDG implementation in the Earth Systems Governance Network. Shirin has an interdisciplinary background and has previously worked as a civil engineer in large urban water infrastructure projects in Africa and the Middle East.

Experience

  • 2016–present
    Associate professor, Monash Sustainable Development Institute

Education

  • 2016 
    Monash University, PhD in Strategic Infrastrucutre Planning
  • 2012 
    Delft University of Technology, Msc in Civil Engineering

Publications

  • 2019
    Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals: A Review of Strategic Tools and Frameworks Available to Organisations, Sustainability
  • 2019
    Decision making under crisis: Lessons from the Millennium Drought in Australia, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
  • 2018
    A participatory exploratory modelling approach for long-term planning in energy transitions, Energy Research and Social Science
  • 2017
    Disruptions in strategic infrastructure planning–What do they mean for sustainable development?, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space
  • 2017
    Preparing for disruptions: A diagnostic strategic planning intervention for sustainable development, Cities
  • 2016
    A methodology to enable exploratory thinking in strategic planning, Technological Forecasting and Social Change
  • 2015
    Strategic planning of urban infrastructure for environmental sustainability: Understanding the past to intervene for the future, Cities
  • 2013
    Judgment under uncertainty; a probabilistic evaluation framework for decision-making about sanitation systems in low-income countries, Journal of Environmental Management

Research Areas

  • Urban And Regional Planning (1205)
  • Environmental Sociology (160802)