Team

Dr Yixian Sun is a Professor of Sustainability Governance at the University of Bath and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. As a leading expert in environmental governance and sustainable development, his research examines the changing role of emerging economies, especially China, in global environmental governance. He is also an editor of Global Environmental Politics and a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Earth System Governance Project. He has published multiple books and over 40 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact international journals. Find more details on his work, including all publications available for free access, here.

Muhammad Faisal Sharif is a doctoral researcher examining socio-political, economic, and justice implications of the energy transition in Pakistan. He is an experienced energy sector practitioner with diverse academic qualifications including a BSc in Mechanical Engineering, a Master’s in Energy Management and MBA, an MSc in Renewable Energy, and an MRes in International Development.

Jiuyang Li is a funded PhD student in the Department of Social & Policy Sciences at the University of Bath, focusing on the sustainability governance of China’s overseas infrastructure investments. Jiuyang’s research explores China’s environmental politics and governance. He holds a Master’s in Political Science from Lund University and a Bachelor’s in International Relations.

Ciara O’Brien is a final year Politics and International Relations undergraduate student at the University of Bath. She has a particular interest in foreign policy and international development, with her research focusing on national and international discursive shifts.

Dr Yitong Ye’s research focuses on comparative politics, environmental governance, and sustainability. She specialises in applying advanced mixed research methods and integrating AI into data analysis across the entire research lifecycle, from data collection to feature extraction, coding, fine-tuning, inference, and insight generation, with the aim of providing comprehensive insights across analysis levels.

Yuen Gu, funded by the China Scholarship Council, focuses her research on China’s climate finance and investment abroad, including China’s international climate stance, South-South climate cooperation, and climate collaboration under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Ya Xiao is a doctoral researcher exploring socio-technical transformation and its implications for sustainability. Her research focuses on the roles of non-state actors in shaping emerging sustainability agendas. Key areas of research include private governance, corporate social responsibility, and global sustainability governance. Before her PhD, she gained extensive work experience across NGOs, UN agencies, and the private CSR sector.

Aarshia Sawhney is a BSc International Development with Economics student at the University of Bath. Her interests focus on sustainable development and political economy. Her current research examines emerging powers’ narratives of climate leadership in China, Brazil, and India using computational text analysis.

Freya is an undergraduate student studying Sociology at the University of Bath, with a strong interest in environmental governance and policymaking. During summer 2025, she worked as a Research Assistant as part of the ISCC summer placement programme, helping to deliver the Bath Conference.

Hanchi Zhao is a Master’s student in Diplomacy and Global Governance at the Brussels School of Governance, an alliance with the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. From 2024 to 2025, he served as a Research Assistant for the CGEL database. His research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, global security governance, and geopolitical dynamics. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Politics from King’s College London.