Dr Akhilesh Surjan is the research and theme leader of the ‘Humanitarian, Emergency and Disaster Management Studies Program’ at Charles Darwin University. He is proactively engaged with the issues of disaster-environment-climate risk reduction and global change and sustainability in the context of human settlements. Dr Surjan has served as a Lead Author of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also as Contributing Author of the United Nation’s Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. In addition to associating with esteemed universities, Dr Surjan has also successfully worked with the United Nations and government and non-government organizations in the Asia-Pacific. Dr Surjan is Section Editor of Progress in Disaster Science (Elsevier) and Series Editor of the book series Disaster Resilience and Green Growth (Springer). He also served as Editor of Sustainability Science (Springer) from 2013 to 2019. Previously, Dr Surjan worked with the United Nations University (Tokyo) and Kyoto University (Japan), where his contributions were directed towards postgraduate teaching and research, capacity building and productively collaborating and networking with multi-tiered stakeholders.