Bio

Aromar Revi is the founding Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) India’s prospective interdisciplinary national University and Institution of Eminence, focused on urbanisation. He is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and the Law and Management schools of the University of Delhi. He is a global practice and thought leader, and educator with over 35 years of interdisciplinary experience in sustainable development, public policy and governance, human settlements, global environmental and technological change. 

Aromar is a global expert on Sustainable Development; Co-Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), from where he helped lead a global campaign for an urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 11) as part of the UN’s 2030 development agenda. He addressed special UN sessions in 2014 and 2017 on this theme. He is a member of the UCLG-Ubuntu and policy Advisor to the UCLG Presidency, He is also a member of UN-Habitat’ Stakeholder Advisory Group tasked with global stakeholder engagement (2019-21). 

Aromar’ policy, practice and research work lie at the interface of sustainability and climate science; and the emerging discipline of ‘urban science’. He is a member of the UCL-Nature Sustainability Expert Panel on Science and the future of Cities. He is Co-I on three international urban research programmes that are redefining the future of urban science (PEAK), responses to urban inequality (KNOW) and urban risk (Risk Hub) with leading universities and researchers from five continents. 

Aromar is a leading climate scientist and a Coordinating Lead Author of the seminal 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C and the Summary for Urban Policymakers. He is a CLA of the synthesis chapter on Climate Resilient Development Pathways of the IPCC AR6 on Adaptation, to be released in 2021. He also led the design for UNDRR of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) a global partnership to promote the resilience of infrastructure systems to climate and disaster risks launched at the Climate Action Summit 2019, New York. 

He has lectured at over 90 leading Universities, across six continents, delivered over 275 addresses and made public and media appearances across six continents. Over 30,000 participants from 150 countries have registered for the MOOC on Sustainable Cities, curated by him. 

He is also an internationally cited scholar across multiple fields: urban (#5), climate adaptation (#6), infrastructure (#7), sustainable development (#27), and public policy (#55)1. He’s the Editor of the interdisciplinary international journal Urbanisation (Sage) and on the editorial Boards of Nature Sustainable Earth (Springer), the International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development (Taylor & Francis) & Urban Climate (Elsevier). 

Aromar has led 125 major practice, consulting and research assignments in India and internationally; published over 100 peer reviewed publications and books; travelled extensively to over 60 countries, including 19 of the G-20; helped structure, design and review development investments of over $8 billion; worked on 3 of the world’s 10 largest cities; across urban and rural areas in all of India’s 29 states and on multiple international projects across over a dozen countries.