Bio & CV
I am an Assistant Professor in the Economic and Social History Department at Utrecht University. I obtained my PhD in Economic History from Utrecht University (2015) for a thesis on Women's Empowerment in Uganda: Colonial Roots and Contemporary Efforts, 1894-2012. My research agenda is at the interface of rural-urban relations in the global south in the 19th and 20th century, with a clear micro-level analysis approach, but also zooming out to the macro-level. My work on historical development, links the fields of economic and social history, colonial history, medical history, sociology and economic geography. I am a specialist in employing historical data, from a wide range of local sources, to analyse living standards, health and the effects of religion on local populations. I combine both quantitative and qualitative methods.
After graduation, I was a post-doctoral researcher (2015-2016) at the Department of Economics, University of Southern Denmark, as co-investigator in the project The Economic History of Christian Africa. This included intensive archival church data collection in various African countries.
In 2017, I was awarded a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (240k) for the project Conversion out of Poverty? Exploring the Origins and Long-term Consequences of Christian Missionary Activities in Africa, hosted by the Economics Department of the University of Sussex (UK).
Prior to starting the PhD (2011-2012), I developed research capacity and taught courses in microfinance at Uganda's Mountains of the Moon University in Uganda for the German Development Cooperation (GIZ).
I am a board member of the African Economic History Network (AEHN) and editor of online textbook The History of African Development and the AEHN Working Paper Series.
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