Eleanor Balchin Profile
PhD student and graduate fellow (University of Liverpool)
Bio
I am a social scientist with a background in development studies, particularly interested in rural livelihoods and agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa.
I am part of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Quantification and Management of Risk & Uncertainty in Complex Systems and Environments at the University of Liverpool, funded by the EPSCR and ESRC. My PhD is considering the financial and social risks faced by homesteads in western Kenya moving from a subsistence model of agricultural production to one of increased intensification and commercial focus. I am currently based in Busia, Kenya as a visiting scientist of the International Livestock Research Institute’s ‘ZooLink’ project.
I graduated from the University of Sussex with a B.A. in International Development in 2015. My dissertation for this was on conservation through commercialisation of non- timber forest products (NTFP); specifically, the attempt to conserve Morocco’s argan forest through the commercialisation of argan oil. Following this I completed an M.A. in Environment, Development, and Policy at the University of Sussex in 2016. My dissertation here involved producing a vulnerability assessment, relating to current vulnerability to future climate change, of smallholder farmers in Northern Uganda. Finally, I completed an M.Res as part of my 1+3 PhD program in Decision-Making Under Risk and Uncertainty in 2017. Here my dissertation considered the determinants and outcomes of access to finance among smallholder farmers in Gulu, Uganda.
Supervision
Supervised by:
- Prof. Eric Fevre– Professor of Veterinary Infectious Diseases at the Institute of Infection & Global Health
- Prof Jude Robinson – Professor of the Anthropology of Health and Illness at the University of Liverpool
- Dr. Rob Christley – Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health in the Institute of Infection & Global Health
