Rafia Zaman
Research Scientist, Sanford School of Public Policy
Contact: rafia.zaman@duke.edu
Rafia is an interdisciplinary researcher who works on off-grid solar electricity access policies. Her analyses consider market development, institutional governance, local politics, and distributional impacts associated with off-grid investments in low-income contexts. She primarily uses quantitative approaches, drawing from methods used in development economics, spatial statistics, and in the engineering sciences. At Duke, she conducts experimental and quasi-experimental research on themes related to energy development and inequality, including evaluation of clean cooking promotion policies, energy safety net programs and the political economy of energy, and (micro-)financing impacts on technology diffusion/adaptation and rural resilience. Rafia holds a PhD (in Sustainability and Innovation Management) from the University of Graz (FWF – DK Climate Change) in Austria and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand.
Recent publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles:
Zaman, R., Das, D.K., van Vliet, O. and Posch, A. (2021) Distributional inequality in market-based solar home system programs: Evidence from rural Bangladesh, Energy Economics, 103:105523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105523
Zaman, R. and Borsky, S. (2021) The impact of supply structure on solar home system installations in rural off-grid areas, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 40: 625-644. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.10.015
Zaman, R., van Vliet, O. and Posch, A. (2021) Energy access and pandemic-resilient livelihoods: The role of solar energy safety nets, Energy Research & Social Science, 71: 101805. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101805
Brudermann, T., Zaman, R. and Posch, A. (2019) Not in my hiking trail? Acceptance of wind farms in the Austrian Alps, Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, 21(8): 1603–1616.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-019-01734-9
Zaman, R. and Brudermann, T. (2018) Energy governance in the context of energy service security: A qualitative assessment of the electricity system in Bangladesh, Applied Energy, 223: 443–456. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.04.081
Zaman, R., Brudermann, T., Kumar, S. and Islam, N. (2018) A multi-criteria analysis of coal-based power generation in Bangladesh, Energy Policy, 116: 182–192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.01.053
Sangkakool, T., Techato, K., Zaman, R. and Brudermann, T. (2018) Prospects of green roofs in urban Thailand – A multi-criteria decision analysis, Journal of Cleaner Production, 196:400–410. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.06.060
Working Paper(s):
Zaman, R. (2022) Distributive favouritism of local political representations in rural areas: Evidence from a solar energy safety net program. (Unpublished manuscript)
Research letters and conference proceedings:
Tabara, J. D., Lieu, J., Zaman, R., Ismail, C. and Takama, T. (2021) On the discovery and enactment of positive socio-ecological tipping points: insights from energy systems interventions in Bangladesh and Indonesia, Sustainability Science, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-01050-6
Zaman, R., Hofer, C. and Brudermann, T. (2018) One step ahead, two steps backwards: Energy transitions and coal in developing countries, In International Conference and Utility Exhibition on Green Energy for Sustainable Development (ICUE), IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8635651
Zaman, R. and Brudermann, T. (2017) Energy governance in resource-poor settings: The case of Bangladesh, Energy Procedia, 142: 2384–2390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2017.12.171
Media:
Coal Power Generation In Developing Countries: A Bangladesh Case Study | Science Trends