Arnico Panday
Chief Executive Officer, Ullens Education Foundation
Arnico Panday became CEO of Ullens Education Foundation in February 2020 after serving the Foundation as a Trustee since 2018. Prista and Arnico’s two children attend Ullens School. Born to a Swiss mother and a Nepali father, Arnico grew up in Zürich, Sindhupalchok and Lalitpur. He earned a Bachelor’s degree with highest honors in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University, a Masters in Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Doctor of Science in Atmospheric Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Arnico was a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University. He then served on the faculty of the University of Virginia before moving back to Nepal. Until January 2020 he was Regional Programme Manager of the Atmosphere Programme at ICIMOD, where he built up and led a team working on research, mitigation and policy of air pollution and climate change in Nepal and the region. Arnico has served on the Steering Committee of UN’s Climate and Clean Air Coalition, on several Government of Nepal task forces, and on the Expert Working Group of the GoN’s Sagarmatha Sambaad. He is on the Governing Council of Future Earth South Asia, on the Advisory Group of a program at the Japan-based Institute for Global Environmental Strategies Japan, and on the Advisory Board of Nepal Economic Forum. He is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS), and continues to supervise PhD students and publish research. Arnico is very passionate about improving the quality of education in Nepal. He led the transition at Ullens to online instruction during the Covid-19 pandemic, and looks forward to designing and building Foundation’s future college in Nala, starting other programs in higher education, and building partnerships with like-minded schools across Nepal. Arnico enjoys hiking, mountain biking, swimming, and photography.”