Dr Claudia Abreu Lopes is a Research Fellow at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH). She has spent 20 years in academia with positions at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Coimbra (Portugal), Institute of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge (POLIS).

Prior to joining UNU, she was an Affiliated Lecturer in Statistics and Methods at POLIS and a Lead Consultant in Big Data and Gender at UN Women. Claudia has also worked on the charity sector with Girl Effect (Data Scientist), and Africa’s Voices Foundation (Head of Research and Innovation), leading projects that used digital data to accelerate and evaluate the impact of public health interventions. She was also involved in evaluations for the World Bank, BBC Media Action and GPSDD.

Her research interests focus on digital health, implementation science and on methodologies that use new innovative data sources (big data, citizen-generated data) as a complement to official statistics to monitor and advance sustainable development goals related to gender equality and health.

She holds a PhD in Social Research Methods from the LSE, a Master’s degree in Social Psychology from the University of Porto, a Degree of Advanced Studies in Social Psychology awarded by the University of Geneva and the University of Bari, and a Licentiate degree in Psychology from the University of Coimbra.