Ida Djenontin

Ida is a Visiting Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute at LSE and an Assistant Professor of Geography at Penn State.

Ida was previously a Postdoctoral Research Officer working at the Grantham Research Institute.

Background

Ida is an interdisciplinary-trained human geographer/social scientist in Environment & Development. Her problem-solving-oriented research centers on environmental and climate change issues affecting forest and agroecological systems, notably the complex challenges of balancing competing goals of sustainable natural resource-based livelihoods & food security, biodiversity conservation, and climate resilience. She uses mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to examine associated sociocultural, economic, and multi-level and multi-scale governance, institutional, and policy dimensions in the search for socioecological sustainability.  Ida’s recent and ongoing collaborative and interdisciplinary projects include research on:

• socio-institutional dimensions of ecosystem restoration in Malawi, focusing on the forest (and) landscape restoration approach (PhD dissertation research titled “Governance of people-centered forest-agriscapes restoration in Malawi: institutional and modeling approaches”);
• decision support tools for sustainable management of forests of high value; 
• social sustainability indicators of agriculture intensification, particularly gender and intergenerational (in)equities in Ghana and Malawi. 

Ida holds a dual PhD in Geography (Nature-Society Studies) and in Environmental Science & Policy from Michigan State University; a Master’s in Development Practice from the University of Arizona; and MA and BSc in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Parakou (Benin).

Before joining GRI, Ida worked at Michigan State University as Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant. She previously worked at the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and at the Institute of the Environment, both at the University of Arizona. She was a Young Professional Fellow with the AUDA-NEPAD’s Sustainable Land & Water Management Program in South Africa, and a Dutch-sponsored Associate Professional Officer with the Forest & Livelihoods Program at CIFOR. Ida also worked with the National Research Institute of Benin where she coordinated and implemented multiple socio-economic research projects and impact assessments.

Research Interests

• Environmental governance and policy
• Sustainable natural resources / Socio-ecological sustainability
• Climate change adaptation and resilience
• Environmental behavior and decision making
• Gender and youth issues
• Knowledge co-production