Remi Chandran

Remi Chandran is an environmental governance specialist with over thirty years’ experience at the intersection of public policy, geospatial technology, and sustainability. As founder of the Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System (WEMS) Initiative, he transformed enforcement information systems by introducing the academic community into a domain traditionally dominated by enforcement agencies—setting a global precedent for data transparency and collaborative governance. He currently serves as a Senior Expert at the Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan (RESTEC), advising on geospatial strategies for climate action, biodiversity conservation, forest monitoring, and digital public infrastructure. In addition, he acts as an Advisor to the Lusaka Agreement Task Force in Nairobi, the UN Maps Programme at the United Nations Global Service Centre (UNGSC) in Brindisi, Italy, and as a Visiting Researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) in Japan. Remi holds a PhD in Public Policy and Environmental Governance from the University of Twente, Netherlands, and an MSc in Agriculture from University College Dublin, Ireland. His career reflects a longstanding commitment to bridging data, diplomacy, and design thinking, advancing systems-based approaches to contemporary environmental challenges. He is a recipient of the Irish Government Bilateral Fellowship (1995–1997), the European Union Erasmus Mundus Fellowship (2010), and the UNU-IAS PhD Fellowship (2012–2014).