- Visiting Appointments
Pablo Astudillo - Estevez is a doctoral candidate in Economic Geography and Complex Systems at the University of Oxford and currently has a visiting appointment at the MIT Media Lab - Collective Learning Group . His main interests lie in understanding how economies evolve and finding ways to unlock their potential to create knowledge, innovate to achieve long-term sustainable and economic development.
Prior to joining his doctoral programme, Pablo was part of the Ecuadorian delegation that negotiated the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Rio + 20 and the Paris Climate Agreement at the COP 21. He worked as the International Climate Policy Coordinator for the Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment. He also served as the Acting National Director for Climate Change Mitigation and advised high-level decision/policy makers in Ecuador on issues related to climate change and sustainable development. He held a position as the Latin America Coordinator for 350.org and as was National Coordinator for a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiative called GEO for Youth. Winner of the World Bank’s Development Prize - Ecuador and several academic awards.
CURRENT RESEARCH
His current research focuses on finding alternative ways to understand and overcome the structural limitations that have locked oil/mineral-producing countries in their current development paths (the resource curse). This involves understanding and proposing different ways that may help these countries to achieve a more diverse, complex and resilience economic structure in the future. His work is based on the application of complexity sciences in economic geography.