CSEAS Fall Lecture Series: Chomkate Ngamkaiwan

PhD candidate in Criminology

Mahidol University, Thailand

Title: "Crime Is In the Air: PM2.5 Air Pollution and Policy Corruption"

Campus Life 100

Ngamkaiwan’s research examines the ongoing PM2.5 crisis in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand, and its vicinities as a form of environmental crime. She also explores the relationship between the air pollution and policy corruption. In these research areas, PM2.5 pollution has been magnified by the misuse of economic power and political influence towards public policies and legal loopholes related to the major sources of pollutants: transportation, factories, open burning, and construction. To acquire the insight about the issue, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions have been conducted with government officials, NGOs, scholars, entrepreneurs, and local leadership.

Chomkate Ngamkaiwan is a PhD candidate in Criminology at Mahidol University, Thailand. Sponsored by the Royal Golden Jubilee PhD Program, a prestigious scheme under the Thai government, she is performing as a visiting researcher at the Department of Political Science, NIU. Since her master’s degree in the same field, she has been interested in corruption and non-traditional crime such as money laundering and environmental crime. Recently, she has been listed as a contributor of the Government Defence Integrity Index 2020, the latest global report on corruption risks in the defense sector published by Transparency International.