Esther holds a PhD in Economics from University of Dar es Salaam and has over nine years of research experience in Eastern Africa covering the countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Burundi with experience in agricultural value chains and technologies, gender and consumer food preferences and more recently Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) of vulnerable youths. Currently, Esther is a Postdoctoral Fellow in gender at ILRI serving in the Policies Institutions and Livelihood (PIL) program. Her work at ILRI is to analyze the role of different livestock species in endowing women with some degree of financial autonomy and deliver evidence on how this autonomy contributes to women empowerment. Her work is to support four country teams namely Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam. In terms of research networking, Esther is a member of the following networks; African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) fellowship alumni, Steering Committee Member on the IUSSP (International Union for the Scientific Study of Population) Panel on Population, Poverty and Inequality (2018-2021), European Investment Bank- Global Development Network (EIB-GDN) Research Fellowship in Applied Development Finance (2019-2021), A bilingual (member) of the Gender Cohort for The GovLab 100 Questions Initiative hosted at The Governance Lab, New York University, Pan-African Scientific Research Council today Inaugural fellow- 2021
