Saleh Ahmed

Saleh Ahmed
  • Assistant Professor
  • Department of Sociology
  • PhD, University of Arizona, 2019

CURRICULUM VITAE

Saleh Ahmed

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Saleh Ahmed is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. As an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist, Dr. Ahmed’s research interest lies at the intersection of environment, development, and social justice.

He received an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Arid Lands Resource Sciences with a minor in Global Change from the University of Arizona. He also has a Graduate Certificate in Science Communication from the same institution. Dr. Ahmed’s previous degrees are on Environmental Sociology (Utah State University, UT), Regional Science (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany), Spatial Planning (KTH–The Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) and Urban and Rural Planning (Khulna University, Bangladesh).

Previously, he worked with news media, the Government of Bangladesh, World Bank, United Nations/International Labour Organization, and most recently, prior to Michigan State, Dr. Ahmed served as an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Service at Boise State University in Boise, ID.

CURRENT RESEARCH

Dr. Ahmed’s research agenda focuses on how structural inequalities and the legacies of colonization perpetuate injustice, influence social and environmental vulnerabilities, and create obstacles in achieving inclusive adaptation, and equitable resilience for vulnerable minority populations. Using a rigorous systems analysis and mixed-methods approach, his current projects investigate (1) land and climate justice challenges among historically underrepresented populations, including refugees and other displaced population groups, and (2) the complexities of unequal disaster preparedness, and recovery in locations where people are exposed to climate impacts and extreme weather events on regular basis.

Through his research, Dr. Ahmed seeks to bring the voices of the marginalized populations into the discussions of environment, development, and sustainability policies. Inspired by a “Two-Eyed Seeing” or Etuaptmumk (in Mikmaw), which is an approach to learning and doing science that gives value to both Indigenous and Western knowledges, he uses a decolonial framework combined with an extensive use of qualitative, quantitative, and geospatial techniques.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

  •  Ahmed, S. and Eklund, E. (2024). Who owns the land? Socio-cultural, and economic drivers of unequal agrarian land ownership in climate-vulnerable coastal Bangladesh. Third World Quarterly 45(7): 1219–1237.
  • Duran, K. L., Al-haddad, R., and Ahmed, S. (2023). Considering the shrinking physical, social, and psychological spaces of Rohingya refugees in Southeast Asia. Wellbeing, Space and Society 4(100152). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wss.2023.100152.
  • Ahmed, S., and Liquin, P. (2023). Impacts of hydropower dams on ethnic minorities in the Global South: Lessons from northern Laos. Environmental Development 46: 100864. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2023.100864.
  • Bellamy, K., Garcia, V., Ahmed, S. and A. Archila. (2023). Ethnic difference at the center of land struggles of Garifuna in northern Honduras: A complex territory of history, marginalization, and economy. Journal of Poverty 27(6-7): 474-494.
  • Ahmed, S., Eklund, E., and Kiester, E. (2022). Adaptation outcomes in climate vulnerable locations: Understanding how short-term climate actions exacerbated existing gender inequities in coastal Bangladesh. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 66(13): 2691-2712.
  • Ahmed, S. and Eklund, E. (2021). Climate Change Impacts in Coastal Bangladesh: Migration, Gender and Environmental Injustice. Asian Affairs 52(1): 155-174.
  • Ahmed, S., Simmons, W., Chowdhury, R. and Huq, S. (2021). Sustainability-Peace Nexus in Crisis Contexts: How Rohingyas Escaped the Ethnic Violence in Myanmar, but Trapped into Environmental Challenges in Bangladesh? Sustainability Science 16: 1201-1213.