Ruby Paterson

I am a PhD candidate as part of GEOFORMATIONS, a European Research Council (ERC) funded project examining the geographies of dynamic governance assemblages in development cooperation civil society spaces.

Previously I have worked at Oxfam Great Britain across the International Operations Team and the International Programmes Team. I supported country teams and senior decision makers during the development of bids; through this, I gained insight into how organisations engage with local partners and civil society organisations, giving me exposure to the organisation’s varying levels of involvement across the globe and sparking my interest in this area of research.

In 2022-2023, I completed my MSc at the University of Leeds in the UK, studying Water and Sanitation Health Engineering. I researched flood management decision-making processes in East African refugee camps, mapping complex governance structures across these contexts and identifying key challenges to the management of floods in refugee camps. I have an undergraduate degree in BSc Human Geography from the University of Reading.