Research

Summary

Development economist with extensive experience in policy-oriented research and international project coordination. My main research interests revolve around labour market issues with a particular focus on regulatory frameworks, employment and informality in the global south. More recent research areas cover environmental issues, including sustainable water systems in high informality contexts. Geographical focus is sub-Saharan Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana,  Kenya and Tanzania) and East Asia (mostly Vietnam).

Ongoing Projects

1. Co-Principal Investigator on the DANIDA financed project STRESS (Strengthening the Resilience of Sahelian Societies) which explores the everyday governance of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in peri-urban areas of Burkina Faso in a context of uncertainty due to climate change and conflict. STRESS explores empirically and theoretically the concept of resilience, i.e. the ability of individuals, groups, communities and institutions to cope with external disturbances and stress. Moreover, STRESS aims to strengthen research capacity in the Sahel on these topical issues.
2.  Researcher on the DANIDA financed project SWASH (Sustainable Wastewater Systems for Ghana). SWASH delivers new research knowledge and capacity strengthening for Ghanaian institutions to achieve water sustainability. The 3 year project undertakes extensive fieldwork in the rapidly growing coastal city of Tema, east of Ghana’s capital Accra. Water governance comprises a highly complex social and political field of diverse public, private, state, and non-state actors and institutions. These often pursue competing interests and are organized according to different logics and rationales. SWASH contributes to achieving viable solutions by investigating the role of informality in government’s efforts to achieve sustainable urban water systems and undertaking a holistic and interdisciplinary analysis of different sites and institutions and approaches water system development as an inherently non-linear and political process, as well as necessarily technical, natural, and economic.

Past Projects

Co-Principal Investigator on the DANIDA financed project (2016-2022) Informal Worker Organization and Social Protection (SPIWORK), a joint research initiative between Roskilde University, University of Nairobi, Kenya and Mzumbe University in Tanzania. SPIWORK was funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ends in 2022. SPIWORK has produced an edited volume and several articles and policy briefs.

Teaching

I have an extensive teaching portfolio which includes a range of economics/political economy courses including Ecological Economics, Political Economy of Development, International Political Economy, Labour in the Global Economy, Global Political Economy of the Green Transition and Informality in the Global South.  I also teach methods courses including Advanced Quantitative Methods.

Moreover, I supervise various masters thesis in Global Development Studies and bachelor projects in International Studies and Socioeconomics.

Finally, I am a regular censor in economics at Copenhagen University and Århus University.

Other activities

Consultant for the ILO, UNESCAP, World Bank and UNU-WIDER.

Member of the ESRC/GCRF Strategic Network on Legal Regulation of Unacceptable Forms of Work (UFW): https://www.dur.ac.uk/law/policyengagement/ufw/

Regular reviewer for World Development, Review of Development Economics, European Journal of Development Research, Journal of Development Studies and the International Labour Review.

Employment Record

2016 – Present  Post.Doc/Assistant Professor at RUC/ISE

2013 – 2016  Consultant at the International Labour Organization

2015 – 2015  Consultant at the World Bank and UNDP 

2014 – 2016  External lecturer at Danish Institute for Study Abroad

2009 – 2013   PhD student at the University of Copenhagen, Dept. of Economics

2008 – 2009   Researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Dept. of Economics                      

2007 – 2008   Economist at the International Labour Organization  

2007 – 2007   Technical officer at CEOSS (NGO), Cairo, Egypt             

2003 – 2006   Assistant to the Director at the UN Research Institute for Social Development

2001 – 2003   Researcher at the International Labour Organization 

Education

2009 – 2013   PhD in Economics, Dept. of Economics, University of Copenhagen,                             

2000 – 2001   MSc in International Development, University of Bath, UK

1997 – 2000   BA in Economics, Politics and Philosophy, University of York, UK