Dr Naomi Francis

Dr Naomi Francis has 10 years’ experience working as a researcher, engineer and educator in the international water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and Australian water sectors. Dr Francis is currently a research fellow at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute (Monash University). There, she is working on a DFAT-funded project focusing on the gender and social inclusion aspects of the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) project in Indonesia and Fiji.

Dr Francis recently completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne’s Nossal Institute for Global Health, which was about WASH in remote villages in Timor-Leste. She has a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering and Arts with honours in Development Studies from the University of Melbourne.

Dr Francis worked for several years as an engineer undertaking flood studies with environmental consultants BMT WBM. Following this, she combined her PhD research with WASH research consulting in South Asia and the Pacific. Dr Francis’ consulting experience includes several evaluations and reviews of gender and socially inclusive WASH programs in Papua New Guinea and Cambodia for organisations such as World Vision, WaterAid and the World Bank. Most recently, she undertook post-doctoral research at the University of Melbourne’s School of Social and Political Sciences to investigate ‘MAMPU’: a women’s empowerment program in Indonesia.

Dr Francis has been lecturing, tutoring and coordinating subjects related to global health, international development, social policy and gender at the University of Melbourne and RMIT for more than 10 years.