College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Community Sustainability

I studied Archaeology, Classics, and Classical Art at University College London as an undergraduate. After working on archaeological sites in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, I turned my attention to issues of health and disease in Africa, gaining an MPH in Global Health and PhD in Anthropology from Emory University in Atlanta. I have held postdoctoral research positions in Global Health at Emory and Evolutionary Anthropology at UCL, and began my teaching career in Medical Anthropology at Durham.

My research centres on health and human development in sub-Saharan Africa. I am particularly interested in the health implications of mass schooling, forced migration, and food and water insecurity. Since 2007 I have conducted a longitudinal study of child development in Ethiopia, and in 2013, I carried out research in Congo as part of the UCL Hunter Gatherer Resilience project. I am currently researching the impacts of hydroelectric dam and plantation development on the people of the Omo-Turkana basin in Ethiopia and Kenya.