Samir K.C. profile picture

Samir K.C.

Senior Research Scholar

Migration and Sustainable Development Research Group

Population and Just Societies Program

Senior Research Scholar

Multidimensional Demographic Modeling Research Group

Population and Just Societies Program

Biography

Samir KC joined IIASA in 2005, and is currently leader of the Multidimensional Demographic Modeling (MDM) Research Group, in the IIASA Population and Just Societies (POPJUS) Program. KC is a founding member of and Professor at the Asian Demographic Research Institute (ADRI) at Shanghai University. KC leads ADRI's research pillar on Human Capital and Development. He is also a founding member of a new initiative in Nepal called "Digital Data Systems for Development." Since 2020, KC has been affiliated with the Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, as a 'Distinguished Visiting Professor'.

KC's primary research interests are: developing and applying multi-dimensional multi-state population models in demographic analysis and projections, focusing on modeling human capital formation (education and health) and urbanization. He has co-developed an R package (MSDem) that can simultaneously model multi-dimensional population dynamics at sub-national levels by age, sex, and educational attainment. KC has published in Science magazine (2011, 2014) and other peer-reviewed journals (e.g., GEC in 2014, PNAS in 2016 and 2018), and has co-edited and written several chapters in the book "World Population and Human Capital in the Twenty-First Century," published by Oxford University Press in 2014.

KC's master's degree in statistics is from Tribhuvan University, Nepal (1997). Subsequently, he taught university statistics in Kathmandu and worked as a biostatistician at the Nepal Health Research Council. KC received his PhD. (specialized in demography and health) from the department of spatial science at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands (2009).

Last update: 23 AUG 2023

Publications

K.C., S., Mishra, R., Mishra, R., & Shukla, A. (2020). Community COVID-19 Vulnerability Index in India. IIASA Working Paper. Laxenburg, Austria: WP-20-007

Balachandran, A., James, K.S., van Wissen, L., K.C., S., & Janssen, F. (2020). Can changes in education alter future population ageing in Asia and Europe? Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, Working Paper no.: 2020/02

Burns, T., Lutz, W. , Goujon, A. , & K.C., S. (2020). The Potential of Integrated Education and Population Policies. In: Systemic Thinking for Policy Making: The Potential of Systems Analysis for Addressing Global Policy Challenges in the 21st Century. pp. 91-98 Paris, France: New Approaches to Economic Challenges, OECD Publishing. ISBN 978-92-64-49456-5 10.1787/879c4f7a-en.

O’Neill, B.C., Jiang, L., KC, S., Fuchs, R., Pachauri, S. , Laidllaw, E., Zhang, T., Zhou, W., & Ren, X. (2020). The effect of education on determinants of climate change risks. Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-020-0512-y.

Lucas, P.L., Hilderink, H.B.M., Janssen, P.H.M., K.C., S., van Vuuren, D.P., & Niessen, L. (2019). Future impacts of environmental factors on achieving the SDG target on child mortality—A synergistic assessment. Global Environmental Change 57 e101925. 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.05.009.