Sayan Radnaev comes from the Buryat Republic, the region of Lake Baikal, Russia. He has a background in land use planning and worked for the local municipality in his home region for 3 years before moving to Germany to pursue European Masters in Urban Development at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. MESCI is the second year of this program. 

After the graduation, he has worked as intern in UN Economic Commission for Europe in the Housing and Land Management Unit in Geneva, which followed with another internship with GIZ - German Development Cooperation Agency for Natural Resources Governance project in the Philippines. After years spent in Berlin working with website content management and fundraising activities, Sayan now works for the German Federal Agency for Energy (dena) in the field of energy-efficient housing and climate-neutral cities.