Prof Mike Douglass is Professor and Leader of the Asian Urbanisms Cluster at the Asia Research Institute and Professor at LKYSPP. He is Emeritus Professor and former Chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. He received his PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA. To 2012 he was the Director of the Globalization Research Center at the University of Hawai’i (UH) and was Co-Editor of the journal, International Development Planning Review. He previously taught at the Institute of Social Studies (Netherlands) and at the School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia (U.K.). He has also been a Visiting Scholar/Professor at Stanford University, UCLA, Tokyo University, Thammasat University and the National University of Singapore.

With a professional focus on urban and regional planning in Asia, he has lived and worked for many years in Asian countries, including in Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. He has joined numerous research and planning projects and has been a consultant for international organizations as well as national and local governments in Asia. He has also advised university programs on planning education in Asia and the U.S.

His current research in Asia, includes (1) livable cities (the environment, personal well-being, and social-cultural life); (2) disaster governance and the environment; (3) globalization and urbanization; (4) international migration; (5) trans-border intercity networks; (6) filmmaking for social research and planning.