Sébastien DUJARDIN

Introduction

After having studied geography in Belgium and the United-Kingdom (UNamur, Keele University, ULiège, and King’s College London), Sébastien was recipient of a FRIA fellowship from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS) and undertook his PhD at the Department of Geography from the University of Namur and the Research Centre for Local Governance from the Holy Name University Tagbilaran (Philippines). Once he graduated in 2016, he worked on two research projects financed by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and completed a post-doctoral research stay at the KULeuven within the Forest, Nature and Landscape Division. Since 2020, he is F.R.S.-FNRS post-doctoral researcher. Prior to starting his PhD, Sébastien worked two years for the Standing Conference of Territorial Development (CPDT) within the Lepur, a research centre on territorial, urban and rural sciences based at the University of Liège.

Dr. Sébastien Dujardin’s research interests lie in urbanization processes and climate change adaptation pathways in Europe and South East Asia in the background of global sustainable development challenges. While working for the CPDT, he got the opportunity to investigate how spatial planning can mitigate for climate change at the scale of the Walloon region by quantifying the potential reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from more compact urban forms and sustainable travel behaviours. During his PhD research, he then focused on how to plan with climate change by qualifying stakeholders’ local knowledge and providing evidence of place-based adaptation strategies in the Philippines. Currently, his post-doctoral research examines how to leverage crowdsourced geographic information (e.g. citizen science data, mobile phone data, social media data) in climate-related risks assessments and urban adaptation research in general.

He is particularly interested in hybrid geographies that combine both quantitative geospatial analysis (Geographical Information Systems, remote sensing, machine learning techniques, big data) and qualitative understandings of lived experiences (interpretive discourses analysis, participatory mapping, Q-method) to provide complementary insights into the complex interactions between climate and human agency in local and regional contexts. He values plural research designs and mixed-methods as he believes these are more likely to produce politically and ecologically more robust solutions to sustainable development challenges.