Dr. Numan Yanar is an environmental scientist, and an urban energy expert based in Korea. He holds a bachelor's degree of Civil Engineering from Middle East Technical University/ Turkiye and master's and doctoral degrees of Earth Science and Environmental Engineering from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology/Korea. While he was doing his environmental science studies, he also gained a background of the governance of large urban systems with a focus on urban energy by obtaining an executive public administration degree from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne/ Switzerland. As a civil and environmental engineer, he has been enrolled in various projects related to the renewable energy, seawater desalination, waste water treatment and air pollution, and published highly cited articles in reputable journals. As an urban energy expert, he contributed to the urban science by serving as an editor and a research affiliate at Innovative Governance of Large Urban Systems (IGLUS) action-research program, and published various journal issues, editorials, articles, blogs related to the urban infrastructures and the challenges. During his affiliation with the IGLUS program, he also co-edited the book named "The Elgar Companion to Urban Infrastructure Governance: Innovation, Concepts and Cases" with Prof. Matthias Finger.

Dr. Numan Yanar currently serves as a senior research scientist at Naieel Technology/Korea.