Dr. Sonia Akter is Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) School of Public Policy. Before joining the LKY School, she was appointed as Scientist at IRRI where she led the Gender Research Team and was the coordinator for gender research of the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP) program of the CGIAR. From 2011-2013, she was Senior Researcher at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Leipzig, Germany. She completed her PhD in Environmental Management and Development from the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Australia. She obtained her Master’s degree in Economics from York University, Toronto, Canada. Dr. Akter worked on numerous policy-oriented research projects in South and Southeast Asia, Australia and Canada. Her three key research interests are climate change mitigation and adaptation policy, agriculture and food security, gender equity and women empowerment. Dr. Akter has published extensively on the design of institutions to encourage resilience and economic approaches to address socio-economic vulnerability. She has considerable experience working with communities, with particular focus on the developing world, including her native homeland of Bangladesh. She is presently an Associate Editor for the journal Food Security.