Biography

Katarzyna Cieslik is a lecturer at the Department of Geography, Durham University, specializing in Development Studies. She has a PhD in Economics and Management from the University of Brussels and a Master’s degree in International Development from the University of Amsterdam.

Katarzyna’s research focuses on the interactions among society, technology and environment, and their implications for sustainable development in the Global South. Through critical political economy frameworks, she investigates the role of technology in both exacerbating and alleviating the tensions between work/livelihoods and environmental conservation.

Katarzyna pursues an actively international and interdisciplinary research agenda: she has been a research associate at Cambridge University, a visiting researcher at Yale University’s Agrarian Studies Centre, and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wageningen. She has conducted research in Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Colombia, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Burundi. Her research is highly practice-oriented; she cooperated with the UNICEF Innovation Labs and a number of local NGOs in Africa (National Union of App-based Transport Workers in Nigeria, FVS Amade Burundi, FARA, CIP in Ethiopia), South America (CONDESAN, AGAPE), and Asia (Practical Action Nepal, Mountain Societies Research Institute).