Sonia Akter

Dr Sonia Akter is Associate Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University (ANU). She is an environmental and development economist whose research focuses on the nexus of agriculture, environment, and development in the Asia-Pacific region, with emphasis on climate-resilient food systems, gender equity, and disaster risk reduction. She has extensive experience in agriculture and food policy, natural hazards, and women’s empowerment across South and Southeast Asia.

She has published in leading journals including Global Environmental Change, Ecological Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Food Policy, Climatic Change, and Sustainability Science. Sonia is Senior Editor for Food Security and former Associate Editor of the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (AJARE), and regularly reviews papers for major journals in environmental and development studies.

She holds a PhD in Environmental Management and Development from ANU and an MS in Economics from York University, Toronto. Her previous roles include Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (National University of Singapore), Scientist at the International Rice Research Institute, and Senior Researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ in Germany. She also serves on advisory panels for the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and Singapore’s Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, and leads multi-country research on climate-resilient development and Payment for Ecosystem Services.