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Biography
Deputy Director (Operations) of Australian
Centre for Sustainable Catchments,
University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, Australia
Dr. Maraseni holds a double BSc in Science and Forestry (earned in Nepal), a Master’s in Natural Resources Management (earned in Thailand), and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources and Environmental Economics from University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He is currently the Deputy Director (Operations) at the University of Southern Queensland’s Australian Centre for Sustainable Catchments. His responsibilities include coordinating activities and programs with staff, community organizations and industry partners; conducting training and seminars; managing and supervising postgraduate students; developing grant applications for climate change adaptations and mitigations research; conducting research and publishing the findings; and presenting results to policy and academic forums. During his work with the Ministry of Forests and Conservation in Nepal, Dr. Maraseni introduced an innovative concept to boost plantation among rural and urban areas known as Memorial Forest Plantations. The Gitthepani Community Forest User Group (CFUGs) implemented this concept for the first time in 1999 and received the Best Community Forests Award from among the 13,000 CFUGs in Nepal. In addition, Dr. Maraseni has also been awarded many national and international awards/grants/fellowships including: the prestigious “Queensland-China Climate Change Fellowship 2008” award from the Queensland Premier, a globally competitive award from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and financial support from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to attend and present papers at a meeting during 2009. He has also been awarded the 2009 Faculty of Business Researcher of the Year Award and 2010 Research Excellence Award from USQ. Dr. Maraseni has published over 65 publications in the last 6 years including two books.