Dr Richard MATTHEW

Professor, University of California Irvine

Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at UC Irvine. He is also a Senior Fellow at IISD in Geneva; member of United Nations Expert Group on Environment, Conflict and Peacebuilding; member of IUCN CEESP and co-chair of Task Force on Conservation, Migration and Conflict; Vice-President of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association (https://environmentalpeacebuilding.org ). Have served on several UN peacebuilding missions, including Rwanda and Sierra Leone. Research focuses on addressing human security, conservation and peacebuilding challenges at the intersection of severe environmental stress, extreme poverty and violent conflict. Also work on the co-development of visualization tools using big data and local knowledge to provide practical risk management support to communities that are extremely vulnerable to flood events and other disasters.