I am a social scientist with over twenty years experience conducting qualitative and mixed methods research, impact evaluations and systematic reviews on gender-based violence, violence against women and girls, masculinities and violence, and sexual exploitation of children and adolescents; in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the UK. I have led the qualitative and mixed methods evaluation of various trials and interventions including behaviour communication change and social protection interventions such as radiodramas, cash transfer programmes and health services interventions to respond to intimate partner violence (IPV). My experience with research and programme evaluation designs includes cluster randomised controlled trials with nested qualitative methods; mixed-methods quasi-experimental program evaluations; and feasibility studies. I led the first global systematic review on the effects of cash and in-kind transfers on domestic violence which has largely shaped the research agenda of this area of work within the field of violence against women and girls (VAWG).

Currently I head the Learning Initiative on Norms, Exploitation and Abuse (LINEA) project, a global learning initiative on social norms and sexual exploitation of children and adolescents. This initiative is currently conducting a cluster RCT in partnership with NIMR and AGO in Tanzania, evaluating a multi-component, gender synchronised intervention using a social norms approach to prevent age-disparate transactional sex focusing on girls, men and the community. I also co-lead with Raising Voices in Uganda the mixed-methods evaluation of a proof of concept of SASA! Together Radio, which aims to address barriers to in-person programming against violence against women and take SASA! to scale.

I have been teaching on the Public Health MSc at LSHTM for the past fifteen years including acting as Course Director and currently sit in the Sexual and Reproductive Health Research MSc exam board as a member and former Deputy Chair. I am currently departmental research degree coordinator for the Global Health and Development Department and supervise various doctoral students.

Past leadership positions include being Director of the Gender Violence and Health Centre and Head of the WHO Collaborative Centre in Gender Based Violence. I was also part of the steering committee of the Global Initiative on the Sexual Exploitation of Boys led by ECPAT and led a Special Issue in Child Abuse & Neglect on the Sexual Exploitation of Boys with a focus on Low and Middle income countries.