Dr Murodbek Laljebaev is a Senior Research Fellow and Associate Director at the Mountain Societies Research Institute (MSRI), Graduate School of Development (GSD), University of Central Asia (UCA). Based at UCA’s Khorog campus (Tajikistan), he provides strategic, academic, and operational leadership in support of MSRI’s mission and regional impact.
Using mixed qualitative–quantitative social scientific methods, his scholarship sits at the intersection of sustainable human–environment relations and public policy, with a primary focus on energy policy in Central Asia – particularly energy transition, energy security, and energy poverty, examining how energy-transition and energy-security policy choices shape household energy access, affordability, and resilience, and how transition pathways can strengthen or undermine energy security while influencing energy poverty and environmental sustainability. He also contributes to research on local and indigenous knowledge, including community knowledge of plants used for food and medicine and the implications for livelihoods and wellbeing in mountain contexts. In scholarly service, he has served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Ethnobiology (since 2020) and as a reviewer for journals including Energy Research & Social Science, Energy Policy, Water Alternatives, and World Development, among others.
He bridges scholarship and practice through regional projects and advisory work, including as Assessment Lead for the World Bank–related Youth Climate Action for Central Asia initiative (2022–2024). His consulting also includes analysis of energy poverty and tariff liberalization impacts for the International Labor Organization (Uzbekistan) and applied assessments supporting food security and livelihoods initiatives in GBAO for Aga Khan Foundation (Tajikistan). Earlier in his career, he held roles spanning curriculum and evaluation leadership in Tajikistan, including work with the World Bank on teacher training program evaluation and service as a Senior Specialist in the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade supporting Tajikistan’s WTO accession process.
Dr Laljebaev previously served as an Associate Professor at Nazarbayev University (2023–2025), an Assistant Professor at UCA (2017-2022), and held academic leadership roles at Nazarbayev University as Faculty Senate representative, and at UCA as Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities (2022) and Program Lead of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Program (2017-2019). He has taught a diverse set courses such as Human Geography, Ways of Knowing, Environmental Governance, Global Energy Policy, Energy Systems & Climate Policy, Sustainable Energy, and Natural Resource Management and Policy. He holds a PhD in Natural Resources (Cornell University), a Mater in Public Policy (National University of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy), and a BA in Linguistics (English) (Khorog State University), and works professionally in Tajik, English, and Russian.
