Richard Matthew

Professor and Director, Alec Glasser Center for the Power of Music and Social Change
UC Irvine School of Social Ecology
United States

Richard Matthew is a Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the University of California at Irvine. He is the Director of two programs at UCI: the Alec Glasser Center for the Power of Music and Social Change, and the Climate and Urban Sustainability Program. He is a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Sustainable Development; a member of the United Nations Expert Group on Environment, Conflict and Peacebuilding; and a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Commission on Environment, Economic and Social Policy, where he co-chairs the Task Force on Climate Change and Migration. He co-founded the eARTh Studio with aerial dancer Pamela Donohoo. His research explores links among climate change, conflict, public health and migration; environmental peacebuilding; climate change and human trafficking; high resolution flood risk models in complex urban environments; and the power of music to mobilize youth around climate change and sustainable urban redevelopment. Fieldwork sites: Cambodia, Canada, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Paraguay, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and USA. UN humanitarian and peacebuilding missions: DRC, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. >250 publications. H-index 42.