I am a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action, where I work at the intersection of climate risk, anticipatory action, and rural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa.

My research asks how households can be better protected against environmental, social, and economic shocks — and how the data systems needed to support that protection can be built in places where information is scarce. I have spent over a decade developing and evaluating interventions in pastoral communities across East Africa, with a particular focus on index-based livestock insurance, graduation programmes, and high-frequency data collection methods.

Current research includes a large-scale randomised control trial across 436 pastoral communities in Kenya and Ethiopia testing whether insurance and paid apprenticeships can reduce cattle raiding by addressing the economic conditions that drive conflict. Alongside this, I continue to research and develop novel strategies for improving information from remote regions, so that we can better understand and support household and environmental dynamics in there data-scarce environments.

My interest in development economics began during two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali. I hold a Master's in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a PhD in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University.