Dr Safa Fanaian

Profile

Dr Safa Fanaian is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work focuses on environmental systems, exploring the relationships between governance, economics, finance, media, and social inclusion. Drawing from systems thinking, her work investigates how policy processes, media narratives, and citizen engagement influence environmental governance and decision-making, with a particular emphasis on gender-responsive, equitable, and just approaches. She has a particular interest in exploring the complexities of participatory methods, such as dialogue-based approaches for equitable decision-making, and the critical issues of environmental and water justice. 

Over the past ten years, she has collaborated with governments, non-governmental organisations, academic institutions, and local communities across South Asia, West Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands to develop evidence-based approaches that strengthen environmental resilience. She holds an MSc in Water Resource Management from IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, the Netherlands, and an MSc in Environmental Science and Ecology from Pondicherry University, India. She completed her DPhil in Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford and is a National Geographic Explorer.

Dr Fanaian's research interests encompass the study of urban rivers in low- and middle-income countries, advocating for water justice, and exploring equity and decentralised models of finance for water-related initiatives. Her work also explores the use of large-scale news media datasets to investigate the framing of environmental issues in policy and public discourse. She also engages with school students to raise awareness of water resource conservation and protection.

Dr Fanaian is also a Visiting Fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.