معرفی
Samarthia Thankappan is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Environment and Geography at the University of York. She joined York in 2007 after roles at Cardiff University and Queen's University of Belfast, with prior research experience in India. Her work bridges sustainability, policy, and socio-technical systems across agri-food and automotive sectors.
- Education: PhD (Aberystwyth, UK), MSc (Agronomy, Allahabad, India)
Her research focuses on:
- Agri-food Sustainability: Climate change adaptation, food system resilience (e.g., Greater Mekong Subregion), and socio-economic factors in crop adoption.
- Automotive Sector: Bio-based material substitution, environmental/economic/social costs of transport systems.
- Climate Policy & Governance: Supply chain impacts of climate change policies and social-ecological knowledge flows.
Her publications highlight cross-sectoral challenges in sustainability, from socio-technical barriers in electric vehicle adoption to food waste valorization for chemicals/fuels. These studies emphasize integrated approaches to decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation.
- Grants:
- BBSRC (2012-2016, £1.71M) as Co-PI for drought-resilient rice research
- NERC (2010-2012, £212K) for coastal ecosystem decision networks
- White Rose (2010-2013, £40K) for industrial bio-transformation studies
- PhD Supervision: Topics include participatory rice evaluation, food security in Oman, climate change policy in supply chains, and biodiversity conservation impacts.
She teaches undergraduate courses on sustainability, food systems, and environmental governance, and serves as a co-investigator for the BBSRC-funded rice resilience project and principal investigator for the EPSRC-funded DecarboN8 initiative.
