Navarun Varma

Dr. Navarun VARMA<br>
<span class="title-fellow">Director of Studies &<br>Resident Fellow (House of Noctua)</span>

Dr. Navarun VARMA

Director of Studies & Resident Fellow (House of Noctua)

rc4nav@nus.edu.sg | +65 6601 6023

Dr. Navarun Varma is the Director of Studies and a Senior Lecturer (Resident Fellow) at Residential College 4, National University of Singapore (NUS). He teaches interdisciplinary courses on Disaster Resilience, Water Governance in Asia, and Food Systems Resilience. His Senior Seminar courses include fieldwork-based learning experiences in ASEAN countries, offered in collaboration with regional universities through the Southeast Asia Friendship Initiative (SFI) of NUS Global. He also played a key role in launching the Study Trip for Enrichment and Engagement (STEER) Himalaya Program at RC4.

Dr. Navarun's teaching and research focus on the intersection of natural resource governance and environmental policy, sustainability science, and policy education. He incorporates fieldwork and policy research into his courses, using experiential and simulation-based pedagogies to help students develop capacities in systems thinking, abductive reasoning, and foresight.

Dr. Navarun, along with his co-editor Dr. Sreeja Nair from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), received the 2024 Outstanding Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Book Award from the Washington, D.C.-based Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA). This award recognizes their significant contribution to the book “Emerging Pedagogies for Policy Education: Insights from Asia.” The book features chapters by RC4 colleagues Dr. Naviyn and Dr. Lynette Tan, as well as RC4’s founding master, Associate Professor Laksh. Some sections of the book draw on pedagogical methods developed at RC4. The award was presented at the 2024 NASPAA Annual Conference, held from October 23 to 25, 2024.

He is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Water Resources Development, published by Taylor and Francis. Before joining the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2017, he worked as a Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi. During his time there, he led and co-managed key policy-oriented research projects in South Asia. This included a study on adaptive flood governance in India, funded by the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), and a project focusing on climate resilience in the Himalayan river basins - specifically the Indus, Ganga, and Brahmaputra - funded by the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA). He also contributed to the development of climate change action plans at the sub-national level in India.