About the speaker:
Dr Saja Al Zoubi is a Research Fellow at Christ Church, Oxford and the Oxford Department of International Development. Her research has focussed on rural livelihoods and gender. Since the war in Syria, she has been concerned with researching ways of empowering women and improving the livelihoods of Syrian families, especially women-headed families, and supporting young people to enter education, enhance capacity building and find work opportunities.

She most recently worked as senior research fellow in socio-economic studies at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Lebanon and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) on ‘Enhancing the coping mechanisms of Syrian refugees for improving their food security and livelihoods in Lebanon’.

She was also head of the Social Studies Department at the Syrian Scientific Agricultural Research center.

She has also worked at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) as a livelihood and food security coordinator, as a socio-economic expert at Action Against Hunger (ACF) and The Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD) and for UNHCR as an expert on women’s empowerment.

She is the recipient of numerous awards, from the Syrian Scientific Agricultural Research center and the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, UNESCO, the Arab League, the Arab Women Organization, and the Open Society Foundation.