James Cook University, Singapore
Dean International

May Tan Mullins will give a lecture on Chinese global resource development and use, resource politics, resource diplomacy and its environmental consequences.

Her research interests cover political ecology of rising China, environmental and energy justice, poverty alleviation and building resilience for the poorest and most vulnerable. Her research topics include China as a rising power, Green BRI and China and Africa developmental relations. Based on her expertise in various international development and human security issues, she is a consultant for the UNDP, National Bureau of Asian Research (US), the Revenue Watch Institute (US) and the Chinese government.

Prof. Tan-Mullins moved from a position as Professor of International Relations at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China, to become Dean International at James Cook University, Singapore, on 1 September 2021.

Department of History
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

Prakash Kumar will give a lecture on agrarian resources, environment, and development in India in contexts of colonialism and modernization.

He is a specialist of history of India with interest in science and technology, colonial history, post-colonial development, and agrarian and rural modernization. He is currently working on a monograph on agrarian and rural history in post-colonial India that interrogates the contested territory of modernization by examining American archives of intervention and the playing out of tensions in execution of community development programs, pursuit of extractive agricultural practices, food security, formation of epistemic communities of experts, and rural-urban continuums.

State University of New York Polytechnic Institute

Andrew L. Russell will give a lecture on the Maintainers network and its history, scopes, engagements, challenges and projects along with its intellectual background.

He is a co-director of the Maintainers. His research focuses on technology as a lens for exploring the ways that humans act collectively to govern themselves. He has written extensively about computer and communication technologies, which provide a rich body of evidence for exploring how people expressed their political and cultural values, and embedded them in laws, technical standards, and governing institutions.