Dr. Kristoffer Berse was appointed Dean of the NCPAG by the UP Board of Regents during its 1378th meeting held on 23 February 2023 at the Quezon Hall, UP Diliman.
The new Dean is a product of NCPAG’s bachelor’s degree program. Berse is the third undergraduate alumni to become NCPAG Dean after Professor Emeritus Ledivina V. Cariño (1982-1984; 1998-2001) and Professor Maria Concepcion Alfiler (2001-2004).
Berse graduated from NCPAG in 1999 and worked as University Research Associate in the College in the same year until 2002. He completed his Master of Environmental Studies and Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Engineering degrees at the University of Tokyo.
Dr. Berse returned to NCPAG as a member of the faculty in 2013. He is currently Associate Professor at the NCPAG and Director for Research and Creative Work of the UP Resilience Institute (UPRI). He teaches courses on public policy, research methods, local government, and special topics in public administration, particularly disaster risk governance, at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
In his vision paper, Berse emphasized NCPAG’s role in a society facing the challenges of “a complex COVID-19 crisis, a continually changing climate, and a culture of politics that has been fractured by misinformation, trolling, and hate.” Berse stated that “now, more than ever, the country needs an institution to teach the public sector how to be agile in the face of disruptions and how to be firm in matters of good governance principles.”