Meet our team
Our Core Team
Our team is dispersed around the globe, collaborating closely across their fields of expertise to produce high-quality evidence on holistic child well-being.
Dominic Richardson, PhD.
Managing Director
Dominic leads and manages our Institute. He has extensive experience in researching family policies and child well-being. Before joining the Institute, he led the Education Research Unit and the Social Policy and Economic Analysis Unit at UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight. Previously, he worked with the OECD Social Policy Division on a broad range of studies on child well-being, evaluating family policies, integrating human services, and social impact investment.
Victor Cebotari, PhD.
Senior Associate
Victor advises on research and policy action in his areas of his expertise, which include education, child development, and social policy. His skills in qualitative and quantitative methodologies are complemented by his advanced research and analytical experience, applied in both academic and policy settings.
Sabbiana Cunsolo, PhD.
Research Consultant
Sabbiana provides expertise in process and impact evaluation and monitoring, and qualitative and quantitative research methods. She has significant experience as an evaluation and research consultant, including international field-based research experience, and a specific focus on vulnerable groups, and children.
Jinyi Ding, MSc.
Junior Research Analyst Consultant
Jinyi contributes to research projects on family and child development policy, with a focus on the Chinese context. She has varied experience from organizations such as UNESCO, OECD, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, in areas spanning education, health, and developmental psychology. Her core skills include policy analysis, development evaluation, and stakeholder engagement.
Haile Fabrega Martin, MA.
Junior Research Analyst Consultant
Haile contributes to policy mapping, develops data collection tools, performs analysis, and provides cross-functional support, drawing on his background in social policy. With experience from organisations such as UNICEF Innocenti, ECPAT International, and Trust Consultancy & Development, he is skilled in quantitative and qualitative methods, focusing on child-centred research and monitoring and evaluation.
Dias Jakupov, BSc.
Data Manager
Dias is responsible for optimising the data acquisition process of our Data Gathering Tool project. He automates the collection of data and enhances the Institute’s capacity building and innovative knowledge creation, through his advanced programming skills in Python, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and SQL.
Mohamed Obaidy, MPhil.
Senior Economist
Mohamed provides expertise in macroeconomics, development economics, econometrics, political economy, and child poverty. He is currently a PhD candidate in economics at The New School for Social Research in New York, and has vast experience in consulting for the United Nations and other international organisations. He is adept in statistical modelling, R programming and MATLAB.
Sumit Karn, MA.
Research Analyst Consultant
Sumit provides expertise on educational reforms and policies on child well-being and academic achievement, focusing on evidence-based advocacy in South Asia. Pursuing a PhD at Columbia University, he draws on his proficiency in quantitative and qualitative research and over eight years of experience working with NGOs, INGOs, news outlets, and government institutions.
Gianluca Munalli, MSc.
Data Scientist
Gianluca undertakes data cleaning, statistical analysis, interpretation and visualisation of results, and technical writing for our research projects. With a background in development economics, statistics, and data science, he has comprehensive experience in applying a variety of statistical and coding tools, including proficiency in R, Stata, Python, and Excel.
Bindu Sunny, PhD.
Education Specialist
Bindu contributes to our research projects in the areas of her expertise and works on developing partnership strategies, with a focus on education in emergencies. She has over 15 years of experience designing, leading, and managing education data, research and programmatic interventions at the intersections of health and child protection, across the humanitarian and development sectors.
Frederico Richardson, MSc.
Full Stack Engineer
Frederico leads the development of our Data Gathering Tool, a project aimed at developing an easy-to-use application to facilitate fast and cost-effective data-gathering processes. With a master’s in advanced computer science and a proficiency in full-stack Python development, he develops our innovative solutions to enhance research efficiency and impact.
Edda Emilia Olsson, MSc.
Research Analyst and Partnership Strategist
Edda has a broad area of responsibilities, including contributing to our research projects through her qualitative analysis skills and experience from the United Nations and civil society contexts. Her background is in political science, with a specialisation in nationalism, ethnic conflict and development. She coordinates the Institute’s outreach and works on developing our partnership strategies.
Juliana Zapata
Research Consultant
Juliana undertakes the project design and implementation of research projects focused on the well-being of children and their learning. She has comprehensive experience in international organisations, working on education projects focused on a range of policy issues including early childhood development, private education, equity and quality in schools, physical education, and sport for development.
