Dr Maria Carinnes Alejandria
IAS Residential Fellow
Universiti Brunei Darussalam
Maria Carinnes Alejandria is an anthropologist specializing in disaster governance and health inequalities in Southeast Asia. Dr Alejandria is an Assistant Professor at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. She completed her PhD in Anthropology at the University of the Philippines Diliman, where her research focused on the intersection of food insecurity and flood vulnerability among older adults in an informal settlement in Manila.
Her publications include the edited volumes Disaster Archipelago: Locating Vulnerability and Resilience in the Philippines and Aging in the Global South: Challenges and Opportunities. She has also authored journal articles addressing complex disasters, humanitarian coordination, food security, pediatric tuberculosis, mental health, and older adult health in the Philippines. Dr Alejandria has led projects related to social health, disaster resilience, and food security.
Dr Alejandria has served as a consultant for various international and national development and research organizations. This consulting work has involved designing and implementing research projects, evaluating programs, and providing strategic recommendations to improve health and disaster resilience outcomes.
Currently, she is editing special issues on disaster governance in Southeast Asia, civilian-military humanitarian research methods, and disaster research methods. She is also the principal investigator of a multi-country project examining flood preparedness among urban communities in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.