Dr. Theresa Audrey O. Esteban is an urban planner by profession who has been in the development field for more than 16 years. She has managed urban planning, environmental, disaster risk management, water and sanitation, and social development projects in the Asia-Pacific region including several comprehensive land use plans, investment programs, protected area management plans, water and sanitation, and UNDP, Asian Development Bank, and World Bank funded projects. Dr. Esteban was the co-author of a chapter for the ADB publication Green Cities entitled A Water Secure Future. She was the Team Leader for the Contribution to Change Philippines Appeal Project where she worked closely with the methodology authors from Oxfam and the University of East Anglia.
She is the main author of the final report Philippine Typhoon Appeal: Contribution to Change. She is the author of the book chapter Collective Engagement: Picking Up After the Storm, in the book Urban Governance in the Realm of Complexity, which discusses participation, community, and disaster recovery, and the Metro Manila chapter in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation publication “Partnership for the Sustainable Development of Cities in the APEC Region” co-authored with Michael Lindfield. Her publication co-authored with Janeen Cayetano “Bouncing back together: Mapping the story of post-Haiyan rebuilding in a coastal community” looks at the rapid recovery of disaster-affected communities by mapping out their different capacities. Her publication “Building resilience through collective engagement” outlines the Collective Engagement Urban Resilience Framework which she has been developing since 2013 while at the ADB. With her technical background, she has developed programs and projects including international seminars, trainings, and workshops on various development issues.
She has done technical programs and projects in varying capacities in the Philippines, Viet Nam, Singapore, the People’s Republic of China, Malaysia, The Netherlands, and Sweden. Dr. Esteban holds a doctorate degree in Urban Development and Governance at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, a master's degree in Urban Management and Development with a specialization in Urban Governance also at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and a master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Philippines. She has given public lectures on urban planning, disaster management, social development, climate change, and water security before professional and academic audiences. Her dissertation, Collective Engagement: From disaster-prone to disaster-resilient city, has been recognized by her peers and colleagues in international development as an important contribution to the resilience discourse. The Rotterdam case in her dissertation is currently the basis of the COVID-19 Policy Briefs for Rotterdam. Her recent publication, The politics of urban flood resilience: The case of Malabon City critically assessed flood risk management in the Philippines and how resilience is a politically charged concept. She has worked on projects in the Philippines, Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Viet Nam, China, and Malaysia.
At present, Dr. Esteban is working at the Delft University of Technology as a post-doctoral researcher for the Real Estate Development and Building in Low Urban Environments (RED&BLUE) project, a five-year transdisciplinary knowledge agenda and impact program focused on the development of integrated real estate and infrastructure climate risk strategies for the Dutch delta and beyond.
