Hi, I’m Apil. Welcome to my page
Welcome
I am a PhD candidate in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, working with Prof. Larissa Larsen on issues of urban resilience, governance, and equitable recovery. I am also affiliated with the AIDD Lab (Advancing Infrastructure through Data and Design), led by Prof. Sabine Loos, where I collaborate on interdisciplinary research linking disasters,impact focusing on social inclusion.
My research examines how post-disaster housing recovery can be made more equitable, efficient, and locally responsive. I use ethnographic and mixed-method approaches to understand how financial assistance, technical support, and institutional frameworks shape recovery outcomes—especially for marginalized communities. I aim to contribute toward recovery models that not only rebuild structures but restore livelihoods, autonomy, and resilience.
If you want to meet me over zoom and talk something exciting, let’s schedule our next meet here. Let’s Schedule
Current Projects
- Post-Disaster Housing Recovery: Comparative analysis of satisfaction and equity in household-level outcomes following Nepal’s 2015 earthquake
- Recovery Governance: Evaluating the role of state, NGO, and community actors in shaping recovery planning and implementation
- Resilience and Inclusion: Advancing frameworks that integrate lived experiences into disaster planning and evaluation
- Chitwan Flooding: Investigating how local stakeholders coordinate everyday responses to low-attention disasters like floods in Chitwan, Nepal.
Latest Publications
- Rethinking housing recovery policy evaluation through assessing satisfaction
January 08, 2026
International Journal of Disaster Risk ReductionThis paper argues that post-disaster housing recovery policies should broaden their evaluation methods to include household satisfaction as a core metric, rather than relying solely...
- Interdisciplinary perspectives on the intersections of roads, sustainable development, and disaster resilience
July 01, 2025
International Journal of Disaster Risk ReductionThis paper introduces the concept of 'roads-in-relation' as a framing device for interdisciplinary research that links road networks, sustainable development, and disaster resilience, based on...
Latest Blog Posts
- What ails heritage reconstruction?
August 20, 2019The 2015 great earthquakes had a major impact on cultural heritage. Hundreds of monuments, including palaces, temples, monasteries, chaityas, bahals, sattals and patis collapsed and...
- Debunking Smartness of the City
August 20, 2016With a vague set of guidelines and widespread political pomposity, we are often told that the majority of Nepal’s population now lives in urban areas....