The PEOPLE Project is delighted to announce that Dr Tek Maraseni, a member of our Project Steering Group, has been awarded the President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI) Distinguished Scientist Fellowship by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The PIFI programme is one of CAS’s flagship initiatives for promoting international scientific collaboration, inviting leading researchers from around the world to work with CAS-affiliated institutions. The Distinguished Scientist Fellowship is the highest category within the programme, reserved for internationally recognised researchers with outstanding scientific achievements and global impact. Awardees conduct a lecture tour across CAS institutions, engaging with researchers and postgraduate students and helping to build long-term research partnerships between CAS and their home institutions.
Dr Maraseni is a Professor in Natural Resources Management and Environmental Economics at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), where he serves as Deputy Director (Operations) at the Australian Centre for Sustainable Catchments. His research spans forest governance, carbon management, climate change mitigation, and REDD+ policy, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region. He has published over 230 papers with an h-index of 45, and his work on carbon management is ranked among the most cited globally in the field.
This is not Dr Maraseni’s first recognition from CAS: he was previously named a Senior International Scientist by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013, alongside other honours including the US State Department’s Climate Change Professional Fellows award and the Queensland-China Climate Change Fellowship.
Within the PEOPLE Project, Dr Maraseni’s expertise in governance, community-based natural resource management, and climate policy in South and Southeast Asia has been a valuable asset to the Steering Group’s work on strengthening early warning systems and closing gaps between informal and formal warning structures.
The PEOPLE Project team congratulates Dr Maraseni on this outstanding recognition of his contributions to climate and environmental science.
