Sophie Collins joined the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in September 2020 as a postgraduate researcherto specialise gender discourse in international and domestic policymaking.

Sophie is conducting her doctorate research on discourse around period poverty in the UK and in Kenya to explore power relations in international development interventions for women and girls. This research aims to understand how and why certain topics enter into political discussion and policy action, the specific framing of the issues, and how political framing may have an impact on the lived experiences of those targeted as beneficiaries of a policy.

Sophie is a gender and development practitioner, specialising in qualitative research design and implementation. She is currently working as a Qualitative Analyst on the FCDO funded Evaluation of the Girl’s Education Challenge (GEC) II.

She has a Research Master’s in Globalisation and Development Studies from Maastricht University. Her thesis analysed the term ‘women’s empowerment’ as a concept and how it is articulated by different development actors as well as in the lived experiences of women participating in a Women’s Empowerment programme in Calcutta, India. Sophie is currently a Doctoral Tutor on the Second Year Undergraduate Course: Health, Poverty, and Inequality at the University of Sussex (https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/modules/undergraduate/2020/L2102N-health-poverty-and-inequality).