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Senior Lecturer in Gender and Diversity in Food Systems
Livelihoods and Institutions Department
+44 (0)1634 88 3644
June joined NRI in January 2020. Before joining NRI, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Laval University (Canada). Her postdoctoral research focused on the rural livelihoods of ethnic minorities who produce traditionally distilled rice and maize alcohol in the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands.
June uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore issues regarding social-ecological resilience, gender and development, social norms and values, adaptive capacity, and resource governance that are integral to the livelihoods of marginalised communities. She has research experience in sustainable rural livelihoods, food and nutritional security, inter-institutional dynamics in natural resource governance, biomass cooking fuel use and population health. She has field experience from Bangladesh, India, Kenya, and Vietnam.
June graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2008 with a double degree in Biochemistry and Psychology. She worked on mRNA turnover in African Trypanosomes at the Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg, bioluminescence imaging of Toxoplasma gondii infection at CIHR-UBC Translational Research in Infectious Diseases, and Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation as an undergraduate research assistant. She gained a MSc in Global Health and Population in 2010, mentored by Prof. Richard Levins and Prof. S V Subramanian, at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. After the MSc completion, she worked at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies as an analyst. She contributed to the development of an estimation of household permanent income from physical assets ownership in LMIC and an index of reproductive health laws from 1960 to 2009 in 186 countries. In 2017, she gained a PhD in social-ecological systems and food security, supervised by Prof. Gordon Hickey at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Dr June Po has a keen interest in understanding feedbacks and dynamics of social-ecological resilience. In particular, topics on:
She is also interested in operationalising action research on conservation/ regenerative agriculture and climate change, incorporating insights from soil science, agroecology, development geography, political ecology, and co-construction of knowledge between technical experts and other societal groups.
MSc course, guest lecturer, NRI:
BSc course, guest lecturer, Faculty of Education, Health and Human Sciences:
Workshop: three-day qualitative research methods seminar in collaboration with colleagues from NRI, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and University of Reading. The research seminar is tailored towards the research proposals and methodological needs of African doctoral students among the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).
Funding: UKRI Strategic Priority Fund
Led by Professor Andrew Westby with a consortium of 9 partner institutions, I contributed as PhD Programme Lead and CDT co-manager.
Funding: Global Challenge Research Fund
I collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the UK, Ghana, Zambia, and Ethiopia to examine the trade-offs of forest conservation and agricultural expansion.
Funding: Innovate UK - co-Investigator
This partnership between NRI, Egerton University, and Anolei Women Camel Milk Co-operative aims to expand camel milk commodity value chain in East Africa through improved production, processing, storage and novel product development, such as a semi-soft cheese called “Camelbert”, with a focus on knowledge and technology adoption, and women’s entrepreneurial empowerment to the proposed research.
Funding: Fonds de recherche du Québec Société et culture – Postdoctoral Fellowship
In the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands, the growing middle class of Kinh lowlanders and the expansion of the tourism industry in the uplands has increased the demand for traditionally distilled alcohol produced by ethnic minority communities. This research explores how traditional ecological knowledge of local alcohol within Hmong and Yao ethnic minority communities is changing under the context of state cultural preservation policy and development goals.
Funding: Québec Centre for Biodiversity Science
Building on Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework, a group of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows at the Sustainable Futures Research Laboratory developed and applied the Inter-Institutional Gap framework on four cases of natural resource governance in Bangladesh, Canada, India, and South Korea. This research has resulted in a peer-reviewed article in the International Journal of the Commons and a special issue in Society & Natural Resources.
Funding: International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Global Affairs Canada (previously named Canadian International Development Agency) (2011-14), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2012-15), Réseau de recherche en santé des populations du Québec (2015), and Margaret A. Gilliam Fellowship in Food Security (2016).
As a doctoral researcher, June examined the relationships between Kamba women’s access to land resources and child growth, focusing on local, gendered institutions on land allocation, women’s agricultural decision-making, and social capital. She also acquired external funding to disseminate research findings to local participants, primarily Kamba women and farmers, after project completion.
Staff Mental Health Champion
Membership
June joined NRI in January 2020. Before joining NRI, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Laval University (Canada). Her postdoctoral research focused on the rural livelihoods of ethnic minorities who produce traditionally distilled rice and maize alcohol in the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands.
June uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore issues regarding social-ecological resilience, gender and development, social norms and values, adaptive capacity, and resource governance that are integral to the livelihoods of marginalised communities. She has research experience in sustainable rural livelihoods, food and nutritional security, inter-institutional dynamics in natural resource governance, biomass cooking fuel use and population health. She has field experience from Bangladesh, India, Kenya, and Vietnam.
June graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2008 with a double degree in Biochemistry and Psychology. She worked on mRNA turnover in African Trypanosomes at the Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg, bioluminescence imaging of Toxoplasma gondii infection at CIHR-UBC Translational Research in Infectious Diseases, and Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation as an undergraduate research assistant. She gained a MSc in Global Health and Population in 2010, mentored by Prof. Richard Levins and Prof. S V Subramanian, at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. After the MSc completion, she worked at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies as an analyst. She contributed to the development of an estimation of household permanent income from physical assets ownership in LMIC and an index of reproductive health laws from 1960 to 2009 in 186 countries. In 2017, she gained a PhD in social-ecological systems and food security, supervised by Prof. Gordon Hickey at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Dr June Po has a keen interest in understanding feedbacks and dynamics of social-ecological resilience. In particular, topics on:
She is also interested in operationalising action research on conservation/ regenerative agriculture and climate change, incorporating insights from soil science, agroecology, development geography, political ecology, and co-construction of knowledge between technical experts and other societal groups.
MSc course, guest lecturer, NRI:
BSc course, guest lecturer, Faculty of Education, Health and Human Sciences:
Workshop: three-day qualitative research methods seminar in collaboration with colleagues from NRI, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and University of Reading. The research seminar is tailored towards the research proposals and methodological needs of African doctoral students among the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).
Funding: UKRI Strategic Priority Fund
Led by Professor Andrew Westby with a consortium of 9 partner institutions, I contributed as PhD Programme Lead and CDT co-manager.
Funding: Global Challenge Research Fund
I collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the UK, Ghana, Zambia, and Ethiopia to examine the trade-offs of forest conservation and agricultural expansion.
Funding: Innovate UK - co-Investigator
This partnership between NRI, Egerton University, and Anolei Women Camel Milk Co-operative aims to expand camel milk commodity value chain in East Africa through improved production, processing, storage and novel product development, such as a semi-soft cheese called “Camelbert”, with a focus on knowledge and technology adoption, and women’s entrepreneurial empowerment to the proposed research.
Funding: Fonds de recherche du Québec Société et culture – Postdoctoral Fellowship
In the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands, the growing middle class of Kinh lowlanders and the expansion of the tourism industry in the uplands has increased the demand for traditionally distilled alcohol produced by ethnic minority communities. This research explores how traditional ecological knowledge of local alcohol within Hmong and Yao ethnic minority communities is changing under the context of state cultural preservation policy and development goals.
Funding: Québec Centre for Biodiversity Science
Building on Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework, a group of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows at the Sustainable Futures Research Laboratory developed and applied the Inter-Institutional Gap framework on four cases of natural resource governance in Bangladesh, Canada, India, and South Korea. This research has resulted in a peer-reviewed article in the International Journal of the Commons and a special issue in Society & Natural Resources.
Funding: International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Global Affairs Canada (previously named Canadian International Development Agency) (2011-14), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2012-15), Réseau de recherche en santé des populations du Québec (2015), and Margaret A. Gilliam Fellowship in Food Security (2016).
As a doctoral researcher, June examined the relationships between Kamba women’s access to land resources and child growth, focusing on local, gendered institutions on land allocation, women’s agricultural decision-making, and social capital. She also acquired external funding to disseminate research findings to local participants, primarily Kamba women and farmers, after project completion.
Staff Mental Health Champion
Membership
