Dr. Rongkun Liu is the Analyst Indus Koshi China Focal Point for ICIMOD’s Strategic Group ‘Reducing Climate and Environmental Risk’ since March 2023. Previously, he worked as a consultant for ICIMOD’s Koshi Basin Initiative (KBI) and the Landscape Initiative for Far Eastern Himalaya (HI-LIFE) from 2014 to 2021.

At ICIMOD, Rongkun conducts transdisciplinary research that addresses the challenges of understanding, situating, and contextualising hazard mechanisms, risk management, and human well-being through a holistic systems perspective. His research interests lie at the intersection of social and natural sciences, focusing on social-ecological resilience, climate and water-related hazard risk reduction, and integrated river basin management within the transboundary Himalayan landscape.

With over a decade of experience living and working in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, he has extensive experience in promoting sustainable development while navigating the diverse and complex social-ecological dynamics of mountain systems. He currently also serves as an Associate Editor for the journal npj Natural Hazards.

Prior to ICIMOD, Rongkun was a Program Manager at the Pendeba Society of the Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region, where he was in charge of projects that promoted environmental conservation and community development in the Mount Everest region. He also worked with the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Austria, the Mekong Institute in Thailand, Yunnan Provincial Environmental Protection Department in China, and the Asia Society, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and World Resources Institute in the US.

Rongkun holds a PhD in environment and natural resources (environmental social sciences) from The Ohio State University in Columbus, US, a master’s in global environmental policy from American University in Washington D.C., US, and a bachelor’s in diplomacy from Peking University in Beijing, China.