Catherine Porter joins Young Lives as new Director
We are delighted to announce that Dr Catherine Porter joins ODID today as the new Director of Young Lives.
Dr Porter brings extensive research experience in applied microeconomics and many years close involvement with the Young Lives study to her new role.
"I am delighted to be taking the lead of this unique programme at such an exciting time," Dr Porter said. "I look forward to continuing the excellent work of my predecessors and leading Young Lives research across our entire portfolio”.
Young Lives is a mixed-methods, longitudinal study into the causes and consequences of child poverty, following the lives of 12,000 children from two birth cohorts in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States), Peru, and Vietnam since 2001. Young Lives at Work (YLAW), set up in 2020 with new funding from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), is tracking the children’s transition into early adulthood to investigate how childhood poverty, gender, inequality, and external shocks impact later education, work, and wellbeing outcomes.
Dr Porter first joined Young Lives in 2008 as a Research Officer to coordinate the study's third quantitative survey round, before leaving to become a postdoctoral researcher in economics. She has remained closely involved with Young Lives, most recently as a senior advisor to their COVID-19 phone survey.
Within the field of applied microeconomics, Dr Porter’s research focus is on the impact of unexpected events (shocks) on various outcomes such as nutrition, education, and parental investments, how inequality develops through childhood into adolescence and early adulthood, and the effectiveness of policy in remediating such inequalities
Dr Porter takes over from Professor Andy McKay, who led the study from July 2020.