ABOUT US
Praxis Labs is a collective of humanitarian practitioners and project managers in international development with a varied background in research, law, migration, education, gender and child protection, environment, sustainable development and One-Health solutions. We are dedicated to the protection of the most vulnerable people in the context of forced migration as well as humanitarian and post-conflict settings.
The collective was founded to bring the best of academic research into programme design and implementation in the field. Each of our practitioners is a professional in their own field: combining the best of advanced degrees with extensive field experience. We emphasize sound grasp of the most current debates in our respective areas, and designing innovative responses that are based on extensive community and stakeholder consultations. Our methodologies are drawn from areas such as law, anthropology, and development economics.
The collective was founded to bring the best of academic research into programme design and implementation in the field. Each of our practitioners is a professional in their own field: combining the best of advanced degrees with extensive field experience. We emphasize sound grasp of the most current debates in our respective areas, and designing innovative responses that are based on extensive community and stakeholder consultations. Our methodologies are drawn from areas such as law, anthropology, and development economics.
CORE TEAM
Dorien Braam has worked in research, monitoring & evaluation, programme development and management of humanitarian assistance and sustainable development projects since 2006. With a background in social epidemiology and engineering, she has worked with non-profit and UN organisations, governments and the private sector across Africa, Asia and Europe. She is an expert in mixed migration and determinants of health, and has (co-) authored academic articles and reports on zoonotic disease risk in displacement, impacts of COVID-19, disaster risk reduction (DRR), disaster displacement and gender, (child) labour migration, and climate change related displacement and conflict. She is currently affiliated with the University of Cambridge (UK) as Gates Scholar with the Disease Dynamics Unit and Research Associate with the Centre for Governance and Human Rights.
Hannah Boles leads Praxis Labs work on labour conditions in the global fishing and seafood industry. Her areas of expertise are forced labour and trafficking in persons, the gendered dynamics of labour exploitation, value chain analysis, and private sector approaches to labour rights violations. Hannah has conducted in-depth research into forced labour and working conditions in the fishing industry and the tea industry, where she has engaged with tripartite-plus stakeholders across Southeast Asia and India. Within her work, Hannah has undertaken qualitative research through interviews, focus group discussions and observations, used participatory research methods, and designed and conducted quantitative surveys on working conditions. Hannah’s research experience spans NGOs, foundations, academia, and international organisations, including the ILO and IOM.
EXPERT ADVISERS
Praxis Labs has a multidisciplinary network of senior specialists who are leaders in their respective fields. They are strategically deployed for each project. A few examples:
- Our South Asia expert is an anthropologist currently based at one of the world's leading universities. She is an expert on bureaucracies in India, and on the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). She has worked extensively with civil society in the field in India and an expert on social protection issues and ethnographic methodologies, critical to investigating the impact of business activities on migrant workers. She is fluent in Hindi and English.
- Our East Asia expert is a legal scholar who has done extensive research on environmental law and climate change law. She has published widely in international journals and is often invited to present her work at international conferences. She is a member of a number of global research networks. She has experience adjudicating environmental disputes and has served as legal consultant to governments, international organizations and multinational corporations. She is fluent in Mandarin and English.