I am an expert in public policy and international development. I work currently as the Executive Director at IE School of Public and Global Affairs and professor of practice of International Development and Public Policy, Social Entrepreneurship and Project Management. I have over 10 years of professional experience focused on the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies and international programmes in countries in Africa, Europe, America and Asia. I have designed strategies for better economic growth with the Government of Sri Lanka and the Harvard Center for International Development; carried out impact evaluations in Perú and Belize with international development banks; led the institutional humanitarian response and disaster risk management programmes of United Nations and the Government of Ethiopia and Ecuador; managed international aid projects at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in different countries; and worked fostering innovation ecosystems in cities like San Sebastian. I hold a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) by the Harvard Kennedy School (2017), being recipient of the international scholarship of “La Caixa” foundation. I also hold a Master in International Relations (2014) and a BEng+MEng in Telecommunication Engineering with cum laude in the final thesis (University of Valladolid, 2006). Additionally, I completed the professional piano studies at the professional music school of Valladolid (2003). In addition, I am the president of the Spanish alumni network of the Harvard Kennedy School; I collaborate leading the international expansion of IMFAHE, a social international mentorship foundation; and participate as a coach with EuropeLab, an organisation that empowers the new generation of civic and political European leaders. I have also published opinion pieces and have been interviewed for relevant publications.

My research involves me working across a range of fields that include sociological theory, the sociological of health and illness, the sociology of humanitarianism, the sociology of the body and emotions, the sociology of risk and anxiety, the sociology of mass media and the history of sociology. My work concerns a range of issues relating to problems of social suffering. I explores how individuals are socially disposed to interpret and respond to problems of human suffering. I attends to occasions where encounters with the problem of suffering are involved in changing people’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviours. This involves me investigating the cultural history of modern humanitarianism and humanitarian social movements. Here I am concerned to understand the social and cultural conditions that give rise to humanitarian moral feelings as well as the role played by the politics of compassion in public life. I am also attentive to the impact of humanitarian culture, politics and practice upon terms of sociological thought and methods of social investigation.

I am a labour market & welfare state researcher and Reader in Sociology and Social Policy, at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, UK. My research interest lies in examining different labour market patterns and outcomes across welfare states, focusing mostly on flexibility at work, work-life balance, and job/employment insecurity. I am also interested in a wide range of areas related to gender equality within the labour markets and how the division of labour within households relate to this.

Attache, UN and Development Cooperation Directorate