Gaea Morales

Gaea Morales joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia for the 2025-2026 academic year. She is a political scientist specializing in global environmental governance, with a focus on the intersection of global and local climate politics in Southeast Asia. Gaea’s dissertation and book project, “Agents of Mass Construction: How Cities Localize through the Sustainable Development Goals,” asks why and how cities choose to translate global agreements to shape local policy, a process known as “localization.”

The project explains both the motivations and mechanisms by which cities localize environmental norms using case studies of three climate-vulnerable coastal capitals: Jakarta, Indonesia; Metro Manila, Philippines; and Bangkok, Thailand. Drawing from a global dataset of SDG localization and a year of fieldwork across Southeast Asia, the project illuminates how cities engage in a dynamic process of policy implementation that is both locally-driven and globally-informed.

At APARC, Gaea will revise her book project and adapt her dissertation into an article manuscript. She will also pursue further projects that cross-cut issues of local and global governance, the political economy of climate and the environment, and human rights. She is especially interested in topics of urban disaster resilience, inclusive climate finance, and environmental migration and security within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region.

Gaea completed her MA and PhD in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California, and holds a BA in Diplomacy and World Affairs and French Studies from Occidental College.