Paolo is a PhD candidate at the Department of Multi-Actor Systems at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at the Delft University of Technology. He completed his double bachelors (BA) in Economics and Development Studies at Ateneo de Manila University and later undertook an MA in Economics from the same university. His master’s thesis explored the heterogeneous and persistent effects of temperature and precipitation shocks on labor outcomes in the Philippines.

Prior to the PhD, he had been working with organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and United Nations, where he worked with stakeholders, researchers, and policymakers to produce climate and disaster research for climate-vulnerable countries.

Within the Center for Social Complexity of Climate Change (SC3), Paolo is part of the ERC-SPHINX (Systemic Physical Climate Risk in Complex Adaptive Economies) project, where he investigates how firms’ expectations shape their economic decisions and how these behaviors may contribute to the accumulation of systemic risk in the real economy, increasing its vulnerability to climate-exacerbated disasters. His research combines fundamental economic mechanisms, supply chain networks, and behavioral data to develop a computational model that identifies the conditions under which firm-level climate risks propagate through the economy, potentially triggering bankruptcies, disorderly investment, and cascading economic disruptions.

Outside of work, he enjoys reading books, playing the Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise, exploring European hiking trails, and figuring out his next adventure.