Alexandra Blackwell

Alexandra Blackwell is a DPhil student in Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation under the supervision of Professor Frances Gardner and Dr Jamie Lachman. Her research is funded by the Department’s Barnett Scholarship.

Alexandra’s research focuses on the implementation and evaluation of family-based programmes in conflict and humanitarian settings, exploring the mechanisms through which stressful contexts impact violence and family wellbeing. In her dissertation, Alexandra is investigating how programmes can be implemented and evaluated in conflict settings to improve and scale up effective interventions and ensure their sustainability. She also seeks to explore new approaches to research and data collection in conflict contexts to strengthen evidence on effective implementation of interventions to prevent violence and promote child development in the most insecure parts of the world.

Alexandra has over seven years of experience conducting research on violence prevention and family wellbeing. She specialises in evaluative studies in conflict and humanitarian settings and has conducted research in emergencies in Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan, among other countries.

Prior to starting her DPhil, Alexandra was a Research Coordinator with the International Rescue Committee, where she oversaw the IRC’s research portfolio on Violence Prevention and Response. Before the IRC, Alexandra was part of the research team at the Global Women’s Institute at the George Washington University, conducting quantitative and qualitative research examining the prevalence and consequences of violence against women and girls across the world.

Alexandra holds a Master of Public Health degree from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health with a concentration in program design, monitoring, and evaluation. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs at the George Washington University in 2014 as an Elliott School Dean’s Scholar.