Risk by Design: Building Resilience into Urban Infrastructure

Dr. Cesar Marolla is an urban climate scientist with over twenty years of experience leading sustainability programs in the private sector. He serves as Visiting Professor of Sustainable Urbanization and Development in the MBA program at Nalanda University, teaching climate-resilient infrastructure, disaster risk management, and sustainable urban systems. Marolla is a specialist for the World Bank Group, having authored the compendium Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Infrastructure Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa’s Urban Areas. He has also served as a consultant to Industrial Economics, Inc., on World Bank resilience initiatives. His research focuses on systemic risk, mechanism design theory, and quantitative urban resilience. He developed the Risk Mechanism Theory Index (RMTI), a corrected mathematical framework for scoring, comparing, and reducing community risk – applied to World Bank case studies in Mali and Lagos. He also explores how ICT, data analytics, and AI can optimize smart cities, stabilize renewable energy grids, and manage global climate risks. Marolla is the author of two books: Climate Health Risks in Megacities (2016) and Information and Communication Technology for Sustainable Development (2018). He is a recipient of the Harvard Derek Bok Civic Award (2013) for long-standing contributions to community and civic service. He holds a PhD from Glasgow Caledonian University, an ALM in Sustainability and Environmental Management from Harvard University, a BS from Columbia College, and a certificate in Sustainability Leadership from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has spoken at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 23), Harvard Global Health Institute, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Miami.

Kenneth Strzepek is a Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy and MIT's Jamel Water and Food System Lab, Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, Visiting Fellow at the Martin School, Oxford University, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado. He was an Adjunct Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Visiting Professor at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Tufts University, University of Pretoria and Colorado State University. Strzepek has spent over 45 years as a researcher and practitioner at the nexus of engineering, environmental and economics systems. He has worked for a range of national governments as well as the United Nations, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, US Environmental Protection Agency, and US Agency for International Development (USAID). He was an Arthur Maass-Gilbert White Fellow at the Institute for Water Resources of the US Army Corps of Engineer and received the Department of Interior Citizen's Award for Innovation in the applications of systems analysis to water management, is a co-recipient of the Zayed International Prize for the Environment, and as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He graduated from MIT with a SB in 1975, a SM in 1977, and a PhD in water resource engineering, as well as MA in economics in 2004 from the University of Colorado and is a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Hohenheim.