Luisa Ciampi

Interdisciplinary Researcher - Cambridge University

Luisa Ciampi is an Zimbabwean interdisciplinary researcher with a PhD in Gender and Agricultural Communications Services in Zimbabwe and an expertise in gender studies in Africa. They are passionate about improving gender equality through meaningful interventions, which support and facilitate sustainable, contextually relevant, and actionable change.

With experience in agriculture, climate change, education, and most recently gender, they journey has been varied. While at Walker they worked on research projects and impact assessments, focusing on several African countries. Luisa also played a vital role in running Walker Academy, providing varied training for academics, partitioners and policy makers.
After Walker Luisa worked as a Research Associate at the REAL Centre based in the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University. Here Luisa lead two projects, one aimed to assess the scalability of a mentorship program in secondary schools implemented by CAMFED in secondary schools in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Tanzania. The second project assessed the effects of the program on shifting gender social norms in Tanzania.

A brief statement about your experience at Walker and how it has influenced your career
During my PhD, I balanced working at Walker. Doing this was challenging but also rewarded me with a period of rapid growth for my research career. I got to familiarise myself with climate adaptation and resilience and overcoming imposter syndrome by organised bilingual workshop in Dakar, Senegal.
I published work focussing on groundwater use in the Volta basin and led a research project on flood-forecasting in Uganda. I also helped develop and deliver training for a variety of people and topics using delivery methods including online, hybrid, and game-based. During my time at Walker, I had many roles, including academic researchers, teacher, communicator, market officer, technician, project manager, organiser, and administrator. This gave me the confidence to do all the aspects of research that fall (rightly or wrongly) to post-doctoral researchers.

The people I worked with were all passionate and kind, and some have become life-long friends of mine. I believe that Walker gave me a head start in my research career, and the flexibility and exposure has been an essential stepping stone in my career so far.