Biography

I am employed within research groups at both the Universities of Geneva and Zurich, where my projects focus upon the impact of climate change in various high mountain regions of the world. My research activities range from the assessment of flood and mass movement hazards, through to participatory studies engaging with local communities to understands adaptation needs relating to droughts and water scarcity. I bring considerable experience at the interface of science and policy, having been engaged with IPCC in various roles since 2009, and through wide-ranging project experience working with government authorities in India, Nepal, China, and Bolivia. Within the education sector, I am working with several Universities across the South Caucasus region to develop a masters-level curriculum on hazard and risk assessment. My current portfolio of projects are supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, German Corporation for International Cooperation, The UK Department for International Development, Swiss National Science Foundation, and the World Bank.

Research interests

• Large-scale hazard and risk modelling
• Climate change impacts on mountain regions
• Adaptation and disaster risk reduction
• Stakeholder interaction and outreach

Selected publications

• Allen, S.K., Rodriguez, L.M, Iwanciw J.G., Boko, M.J., Brusa, F., Grunwaldt, A.H., 2020: Building transformative institutional adaptive capacity: Assessing the potential contribution of PPCR to building a climate‐resilient water governance framework in the Plurinational State of Bolivia. Inter-American Development Bank, Washington DC, USA. http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0002226.
• Allen S.K., Zhang G, Wang W, Yao T., Bolch T. 2019: Potentially dangerous glacial lakes across the Tibetan Plateau revealed using a large-scale automated assessment approach. Science Bulletin. Elsevier 64(7): 435–445. DOI: 10.1016/J.SCIB.2019.03.011.
• Allen, S.K., Ballesteros-Cánovas, J. A., Randhawa, S.S., Singha, A.K., Huggel, C., Stoffel, M. 2018: Translating the concept of climate risk into an assessment framework to inform adaptation planning: Insights from a pilot study of flood risk in Himachal Pradesh, Northern India. Environmental Science and Policy, 87, 1-10, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.05.013.