Caroline Ochieng joined SEI Stockholm in September 2012 as a Research Fellow.

She has 10 years of teaching and research experience in environmental health in developing countries, with a focus on household energy. Her research has entailed investigations into the social, health and environmental impacts of the utilization of biomass fuels, and the potential interventions.

She recently completed her PhD in public health and policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her thesis, Assessment of Environmental Health Benefits of Improved Wood Stoves in Rural Kenya, documented that although low-cost improved stove technologies do not lead to considerable reduction in household air pollution, they have important added benefits to the households through reduced fuel use, cleanliness, safety and comfort.

Her future research ideas include scientific investigation into these co-benefits, which are the key drives for adoption of the stoves and need to be incorporated in cost-effectiveness analyses of improved cookstove programmes.

She is also developing work around non-technical measures for reducing household air pollution in rural settings in Africa where clean fuels and more advanced biomass stoves are not likely to penetrate in the near term. Besides research, Caroline has been engaged in teaching both in Kenyatta University and LSHTM. For the past four years she has been deputy module organizer for the distance learning course on environmental health policy at LSHTM.