At the Cascade Institute, my work spans both the Polycrisis and Scale-Up & Acceleration programs. I engage with the concept of polycrisis as a condition in which crises across energy, climate, governance, and social systems become causally entangled, producing harms—and opportunities—that are greater than the sum of their parts. Within this context, my research explores how energy transitions interact with broader systemic risks, and how these interactions can be shaped to reduce vulnerability while enabling positive, reinforcing outcomes. At the same time, through the Scale-Up & Acceleration program, I contribute to applied research focused on accelerating clean energy transformation by identifying and strengthening virtuous cycles across technology, policy, finance, and social systems. Across both programs, my work combines data analysis, systems thinking, and strategic foresight to inform timely decisions by policymakers, financial actors, and other frontline stakeholders working to advance fast, fair, and resilient energy transitions under conditions of deep uncertainty.
I completed my PhD in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo, focusing on decision support for carbon dioxide removal in Canada, and have spent the past decade working on climate change mitigation and adaptation challenges.
On the climate change mitigation side, my PhD research with the Waterloo Climate Intervention Strategies Lab focused on the role of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies—particularly Direct Air Capture (DAC)—in Canada. As part of a national project funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada, I led the development of a Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) tool to support long-term, flexible policy planning for DAC deployment under deep uncertainty. This work integrated qualitative and quantitative scenario methods, integrated assessment modeling, and stakeholder engagement through workshops with experts from government, industry, and academia. Findings from this research were published in journals including Applied Energy, Frontiers in Climate, and Nature Communications Earth & Environment, and I also contributed a policy brief on marine CDR to support emerging policy discussions in that area.
On the climate change adaptation side, I have worked as a climate and equity risk scientist with the Climate Risk Research Group and Partners for Action. This work focused on understanding how climate hazards—particularly flooding—disproportionately affected marginalized communities across Canada. Through applied research and geospatial vulnerability mapping, I contributed to projects that supported more informed and equitable decision-making at the municipal level. This research was supported by organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross and The Co-operators, with a shared goal of strengthening resilience where it was needed most. I also published research on seismic risk and social vulnerability in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, and earlier in my academic career examined water resource allocation under scarcity, with publications in the Journal of Hydrology and Science of the Total Environment.
Feel free to contact me via email at kasra@cascadeinstitute.org, or connect with me through the social media links below.
