Associate Professor Surjan is proactively engaged with the issues of disaster-environment-climate risk reduction and global change and sustainability in the context of human settlements.
Akhilesh 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. He is an editorial board member of peer reviewed journals and regularly publishes in international journals, peer reviewed books, conference proceedings, newsletters and electronic media.
Dr Surjan is Associate Editor of Progress in Disaster Science (Elsevier) and Series Editor of book series Disaster Resilience and Green Growth (Springer). He also served as Editor of Sustainability Science (Springer) from 2013 to 2019. He is regularly invited to lecture in global, regional and national forums, community networks and relevant research and training institutes.
Dr Surjan lived in Japan for 10 years and worked with the United Nations University (Tokyo) and Kyoto University, where his contributions were directed towards postgraduate teaching and research, capacity building and productively collaborating and networking with multi-tiered stakeholders.
Dr Surjan deliberated risk management issues from the platform of Disaster Management Institute, Bhopal (India), which was established in the aftermath of the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984. Later, under UNDP’s Disaster Risk Management Program, he facilitated mainstreaming of community-based disaster preparedness concepts in the Indian Government's policy, planning and implementation.
Dr Surjan is also a trained architect and planner—areas of interest that help occupy the little free time he has.