To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.
Biography
Alexandre Strapasson is a Belfer Center Fellow in Agriculture and Energy Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, working on the agriculture-energy-water nexus and sustainable bioenergy futures. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London and a Visiting Lecturer at IFP School in Paris. He is originally from Brazil and has been working on energy and environmental science for many years, including as principal investigator and international consultant. Prior to these experiences, Alexandre was Director and Head of Department of Bioenergy (and Deputy Secretary) at the Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture. He was also UNDP Consultant for energy and climate change at the Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment, participating in the UNFCCC negotiations. He is an Agricultural Engineer, holding an M.S. in Energy from the University of Sao Paulo (USP), and a Ph.D. in Energy and Environment from Imperial College London, with a Postdoc in Sustainability Science from Harvard University.
Awards
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Recognition for External Achievements, President's Annual Address to the College community, Imperial College London, 2016
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“Sir Geoffrey Vickers Memorial Award”, International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), Berlin, Germany, 2015
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“Medal of 150 Year Jubilee” of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply, awarded as a civil servant from the Minister of State, MAPA, Brasilia, Brazil, 2010
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MasterCana Prize Awardee, category “The Most Influents of the Sector”, National Level, Brazil, 2009
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MasterCana Prize Awardee, category “Personality of the Year”, Center-South Region, Brazil, 2009
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Homage for contributions to the “Bolsa de Reciclagem” Programme, a supporting initiative for waste recycling promoted by the Federation of Industries of the State of Parana (FIEP), Senai-CIC/Cetsam, Curitiba, Brazil, 2003
Outside Professional Activities
Previous professional experiences
Prior to joining the Belfer Center, Dr. Strapasson was an Honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London (2010-2016), where he used to teach in three different master programs: Environmental Technology, Sustainable Energy Futures, and Green Chemistry. He was also one of the lead modelers of the Global Calculator project, led by the former UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and co-funded by the EU Climate-KIC, as well as Principal Investigator of the EU Land Use Futures project, funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). He supervised graduate students at Imperial, and students from distance learning programs of the Centre for Development, Environment and Policy at SOAS, University of London. He also did technical consultancies for the private sector while at Imperial College. Moreover, since 2011 he has been annually lecturing in bioenergy and renewable energies at IFP School in Paris.
Dr. Strapasson is originally from Brazil, and worked for the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture (2005-2010) as Director and Head of the Department of Bioenergy, and Deputy Secretary. He led the development of a sugarcane agro-ecological zoning nationwide, and new biofuel policies, including supporting mechanisms for farmers and industrials, market regulation, crop monitoring systems, and research initiatives at Embrapa and public universities. He was also Chairman of the Sugar and Ethanol Chamber at the Ministry of Agriculture, and Chairman of the permanent working group on agro-energy at Consejo Agropecuario del Sur – CAS (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay). He acted as the Brazilian representative for sustainability affairs under the Brazil-USA MoU in Bioenergy, and collaborated with several other nations and international organizations, such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the OAS Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the International Sugar Organization (ISO), and the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP). While at the government, he also attended an official residential training program in climate change offered by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment in Tokyo and Tsukuba, as a JICA Fellow, and was the coordinator of a capacity building program in sustainable biofuels for more than 70 developing countries from Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Before these experiences, he worked as a Consultant of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for energy and climate change affairs at the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment (2003-2005), contributing in several global issues, such as: the millennium development goals, the ozone agenda, the clean development mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, and the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Dr. Strapasson also has previous passages in environmental NGO (Antroposphera), the Paraná State Federation of Agriculture (FAEP), and the Lactec Institute in Curitiba, Brazil.