Our team

Rimjhim Aggarwal

Associate Professor, School of Sustainability

rmaggarw@asu.edu

Trained as a development economist, Rimjhim Aggarwal’s research lies at the interface between sustainability science and international development. In current research she is examining emerging conflicts in the framing of water as a human right as well as a socio-economic and ecological good in the informal settlements of Delhi, SãoPaulo and Johannesburg. She is also working on a NSF funded project on Food, Energy and Water Nexus. Her recently completed project on Activating Global Citizenship through UN Sustainable Development Goals was funded through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Nina Berman

Professor of International Letters and Cultures

nberman2@asu.edu

A commitment to working across diverse geographies, histories, and cultures to advance qualitative change in the lives of humans marks the foundation of my career. My scholarship focuses on the dynamics of cultural diversity, socio-economic disparities and policy, and political authority affecting various populations. Current projects: a book-length study on Kenyan popular economy; collaborative work on remittances; and ecoliteracy at Kenyan secondary schools.

Mary Jane Parmentier

Clinical Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, College of Global Futures

mparment@asu.edu

Mary Jane Parmentier is a Clinical Professor at Arizona State University in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the College of Global Futures. With a background in global development, she designed and teaches courses on development, and is also a member of the Center for Energy and Society at SFIS. She has worked most recently with Practical Action in Bolivia on creating social value from off-grid renewable energy projects, and with several NGOs in Brazil.

Craig Calhoun

University Professor of Social Sciences

cjcalhou@asu.edu

Craig Calhoun has worked in many different regions of the world on democratic politics, social movements, political economy, social change and technology. Before coming to ASU, he was Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), President of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), and a professor at NYU, Columbia, and UNC-Chapel Hill. His books include Does Capitalism Have a Future? Critical Social Theory; The Roots of Radicalism; and two books forthcoming in 2022: Degenerations of Democracy (with Dilip Gaonkar and Charles Taylor) and The Green New Deal and the Future of Work (edited with Ben Fong).

Netra Chhetri

Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society

nchhetri@asu.edu

Netra Chhetri is Professor at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at ASU. His work centers on a single vision: to advance innovations, both social and technological, to help communities at the margins of society build on their expertise and serve their interests. He draws from and contributes to the theory and practice of grassroots innovation by blending knowledge and practice that integrate research, education, institution-building, and engagement. Building on his experience on global development, Netra led the initiative in the creation of two transdisciplinary degree programs: Ph.D. program in Innovation in Global Development and T Graduate Certificate in Global Development and Innovation.

Hallie Eakin

Professor, School of Sustainability, College of Global Futures

heakin@asu.edu

My research focuses on social, institutional and political relations that shape human vulnerability to intersecting stressors, including climate extremes and climate change. I am interested in the ways in which these relations are often intentionally hidden, neglected, or unacknowledged in public and private decision-making intended to reduce vulnerabilities. This work explores the nature of informality, and its strategic use in defining responsibilities, burdens and benefits in resilience and adaptation efforts.

Gary Grossman

Associate Director-Faculty/Associate Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, College of Global Futures

ggrossma@asu.edu

Experienced in the administration of World Bank, U.S. Government and privately funded projects, Professor Grossman is internationally recognized for leadership in his areas of interest and has focused much of his career on examining and remediating higher education disparities as development issues, both in the US and around the world. His current research concerns the implementation efficacy of the UN Sustainable Development Goals globally, with a particular focus in the nations of Central Asia and the structural impacts of COVID-19 in developing nations.

Salah Hamdoun

Doctoral Student, School for the Future of Innovation in Society

shamdoun@asu.edu

Salah Hamdoun is a doctoral student in the Innovation in Global Development (IGD) Program at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University. His research interests lie in the area of financial technology, grassroots innovation, and social economics. He has over ten years of professional experience in money markets, financial derivatives, and alternative investments. He started his career at ABN Amro Bank in the Netherlands and has worked for institutions such as Standard Chartered Bank and Mashreq Bank.

Okechukwu Iheduru

Professor of Political Science

oideduru@asu.edu

My interest in the Human Economies working group is in the way the formal and informal economic activities have historically been central to the transformations in global capitalism, and rather than two separate and contradictory spheres. Their mutual interpenetration is even more critical the transformations in contemporary capitalism and its reshaping of our global futures. In this vein, I specifically study the nexus between formal and informal non-state actors and transformations in regional integration and the impact of "migrant" remittances on regional and global financial futures.

David Manuel-Navarette

Associate Professor, School of Sustainability, College of Global Futures

dmanueln@asu.edu

I research the sustainability of agroforestry systems, coastal areas, agriculture frontiers, tourism developments, megacities, and other social-ecological and technological systems across Latin America. My current work in Ecuador focuses on the sustainability of the Amazon, and its indigenous biocultures. I am working with Waorani communities to design and implement economic activities that generate local income while fostering the thriving of all beings in the rainforest. My research promotes decolonization, transformations, and the bottom-up emergence of human economies towards global sustainability.

Christopher Morehart

Associate Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change

ctmoreha@asu.edu

Chris Morehart is an anthropologist, archaeologist, and ethnobotanist. His research centers on the long-term interaction between political, economic and environmental change. He has conducted research on a range of issues, including institutional sustainability in farm and irrigation systems, the impact of Spanish Colonial economic policies on environmental degradation, the connections between political stability and conflict in past societies, and the integration of ecological conservation and cultural heritage. He has worked throughout Latin America, but most of his primary research occurs in central Mexico.

Alicia Marseille

Interim Deputy Director, Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service

amarron@asu.edu

Alicia Marseille serves as the interim deputy director and director of innovation following her successful directorship of the RISN Incubator, a circular economy accelerator. Prior to joining ASU, Alicia spent seven years in economic development. She was the director of the SBA funded Women's Business Center for Maricopa County that provided services for underserved communities. Alicia's interest in human economies launched when she founded an international small business working with a large cooperative of farmers in the Caribbean to export/import raw green coffee.

Adam Nocek

Associate Professor in the Philosophy of Technology and Science and Technology Studies in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering

anocek@asu.edu

Adam Nocek works at the intersection of philosophy, design, media, and the biological sciences. In both theory and practice, Nocek seeks to expand what we mean by technology to reimagine how it designs and mediates life on earth. His most recent work focuses on the political, economic, and ecological exploitation of computational design at scale. This has propelled his work to engage a wide range of pressing topics in recent years, from algorithmic governance and the computational biosciences to tactical urbanism, the design of artificial ecosystems, and the loss of biodiversity through urban development.

Olcay Unver

Professor of Practice, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Environmental and Resource Management Program; Honorary Senior Advisor to Joint Structured Doctoral Program on Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems, University of Kassel, Germany and Agricultural University of Georgia, Georgia

Olcay.Unver@asu.edu

Olcay Ünver is Professor of Practice at ASU Polytechnic School ERM program, Industry Fellow at Australian Rivers Institute, and member of Water Policy Group. He was Vice Chair of UN-Water until 2020; led FAO’s water portfolio and UN World Water Assessment Programme. He was a distinguished professor of water resources at Kent State University in 2004-2007. As President of Turkey’s GAP project, he transformed a large infrastructure project into a sustainable development program, for which Time Magazine listed him among the 19 “European Visionaries” in 1999 and New York Times featured him. He is an associate editor for Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, and on the editorial boards of Water Security (Elsevier) and Future of Food (Kassel University) journals. He is a NATO Science Scholar, and an IWRA Fellow.

Sarah Graff

Principal Lecturer and Honors Faculty Fellow, Barrett, The Honors College; Faculty Affiliate, School of Human Evolution and Social Change; Affiliated Faculty, The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict; Faculty Affiliate, The Melikian Center: Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies

srgraff@asu.edu

Sarah R. Graff is an anthropological archaeologist interested in the relationship between how people organized politically in the past, their economic practices, and their social dynamics. She is particularly interested in the foundations of human economy and society. Her research examines how people produced, exchanged, and used ceramic containers, such as for preparing and cooking food. She believes archaeology provides a significant toolkit for revealing the often-invisible activities and lives of marginalized groups in the past. Her current fieldwork project is at the ancient Phrygian site of Kerkenes in Yozgat, Turkey.

Sydney Armstrong

PhD Student, Innovation in Global Development; Lecturer, Department of Economics at the University of Guyana

sarmst15@asu.edu

Presently, I am a student in the Innovation in Global Development PhD program at Arizona State University and a lecturer at the University of Guyana in the Department of Economics. At the University of Guyana, I conduct lecture sessions for courses in Development Economics, Industrial Organisation, Industrial Policy and Applied Econometrics. I currently hold a Diploma in Public Management and Bachelor’s Degree in Economics both from the University of Guyana and A Master Degree in Development Economics from the University of Queensland.

Judit Kroo

Associate Professor, Japanese Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies, School of International Letters and Cultures

Judit.Kroo@asu.edu

My research employs linguistic and anthropological methodologies to consider natural and mediatized language, focusing on the discursive (re)-imagining of ordinary life in the wake of socio-ecological precarity. Current projects investigate the affordances of alternative human economies among younger Japanese adults who engage in atypical modalities of shokunin ‘artisan’ labor in ecologically precarious areas of rural Tohoku. Other projects examine the formation of norms in interactional semiosis analyzing interrogating how the logics of ‘ordinariness’ are mobilized to (re)-frame otherwise marginalized practices as ‘normal’.