Dr Rongkun Liu has been working as Water Policy Specialist at ICIMOD since June 2025. Previously, he worked as Analyst Indus Koshi China Focal Point from March 2023 to May 2025, and a consultant for ICIMOD’s Koshi Basin Initiative (KBI) and the Landscape Initiative for Far Eastern Himalaya (HI-LIFE) between 2014 and 2021.

Rongkun conducts transdisciplinary research that addresses the challenges of understanding, situating, and contextualising hazard mechanisms, risk management, and human well-being through a holistic systems approach . His research interests lie at the intersection of social and natural sciences, focusing on social-ecological resilience, climate and water-related hazard risk reduction, and integrated river basin management within the transboundary Himalayan landscape.

With over a decade of experience living and working in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, he has extensive experience in promoting sustainable development while navigating the diverse and complex social-ecological dynamics of mountain systems. He currently also serves as an Associate Editor for the Nature Portfolio journal – npj Natural Hazards, and a member of  the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) World Weather Research Programme’s Working Group on Societal and Economic Research Applications (SERA).

Prior to ICIMOD, Rongkun was a Program Manager at the Pendeba Society of the Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region, where he was in charge of projects that promoted environmental conservation and community development in the Mount Everest region. He also worked with the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Austria, the Mekong Institute in Thailand, Yunnan Provincial Environmental Protection Department in China, and the Asia Society, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and World Resources Institute in the United States.

Rongkun holds a PhD in environment and natural resources (environmental social sciences) from The Ohio State University in Columbus, US, a master’s in global environmental policy from American University in Washington DC, US, and a bachelor’s in diplomacy from Peking University in Beijing, China.