Sophia D’Angelo has more than 10 years of experience working in the field of education in both development and humanitarian settings. Her work has spanned diverse topics including teacher professional development, curriculum design, educational technology, sexual and reproductive health and rights, life skills and non-formal education, and teacher wellbeing. She is a strong believer in the important role that teachers play and is an advocate for supporting teachers to foster more inclusive teaching and learning environments. As a former teacher and teacher trainer, Sophia is committed to understanding and addressing issues of equity in classrooms, schools, communities, and educational policy.

Sophia is particularly interested in issues of equity and inclusion in relation to gender and how it intersects with age, socioeconomic level, ethnicity, disability, displacement, or refugee status. She has worked closely with Overseas Development Institute’s (ODI) Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) research consortium and the Addressing Learning and Innovation in Gender Norms (ALIGN) platform. She has created teacher training curricula around girls’ education and conflict-sensitive education for Save the Children’s country offices in Africa; and has conducted gender analyses for non-formal educational programmes in the Middle East and South Asia. She’s led various consultancies with key actors in the field of education in emergencies, including the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), and Sesame Workshop International; and she is currently working as an Inclusive Education Consultant for the World Bank.

Sophia values social relationships as the fundamental aspect of research ethics. She believes in the importance of engaging with local stakeholders – especially participants – in the design and implementation of research. Her anthropological work in schools has involved arts-based and participatory methods with students and teachers; and she also has experience using quantitative methods through online or paper-based surveys. Her work ranges from multisite ethnographies to remote cross-country scoping studies. Sophia also has a wide range of experiences conducting desk-based research, including rapid evidence reviews, resource mappings, policy analyses, programme evaluations, and systematic literature reviews. Sophia has written guidance notes, policy briefs, strategic frameworks, and reports. She also looks for more creative ways of disseminating research findings, through for example, multimedia, storytelling or the use of interactive workshops.

Sophia has a PhD and MPhil in education and international development from the University of Cambridge’s The Real Centre (Research in Equitable Access and Learning) and a BA from Princeton University. She has a proven track record of working effectively with diverse and multisectoral teams in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific; and is currently based in the Dominican Republic.