Dr Michelle Lokot
Assistant Professor
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
15-17 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H9SH
United Kingdom
Michelle has experience conducting qualitative research using interdisciplinary approaches. Her research interests include forced migration, gender, humanitarian assistance, gender-based violence, decolonising research and research methods. She has experience conducting feminist research and using participatory approaches.
Michelle was previously a humanitarian practitioner focused on gender equality and gender-based violence. Prior to joining LSHTM, Michelle worked for the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps and World Vision, including longer-term postings in Jordan, Nigeria and Burundi. Her PhD research explored humanitarian gender narratives on (im)mobility, family relationships and resistance among self-settled Syrian refugees in Jordan.
Michelle has a PhD in Gender Studies, a Masters degree in International and Community Development, a Bachelors degree in Law and a Bachelors degree in Arts.
Michelle is a Co-Director of the Health in Humanitarian Crises Centre and a member of the Gender Violence and Health Centre. Michelle is part of the global GBV AoR Community of Practice.
Affiliations
Teaching
Michelle is Co-Organiser of the Conflict & Health course, where she also lectures on gender-based violence in humanitarian crises and decolonising humanitarian health. She lectures on ethics in gender-based violence research on the LSHTM short course 'Researching Gender-based violence: methods and meaning'.
Michelle supervises multiple doctoral students at LSHTM, including a PhD student researching research co-production and a DrPH student researching migrant worker health in Singapore. She also supervises a PhD student at the University of New South Wales (Australia) for a project on cross-cultural supervision of mental health services for Syrian refugees in Turkey.
Michelle is a tutor and research supervisor for students completing a MSc in Public Health.
Research
Michelle leads a workstream on the GOAL project (funded by GCRF/ESRC), which seeks to support government and partners to strengthen the mental health system for refugees and host communities in Lebanon. Within GOAL, her work focuses on governance, participation, gender and capacity-strengthening. As part of GOAL as well as the RECAP project, she has conducted research on co-production within humanitarian settings.
Michelle is Co-Investigator for research on intimate partner violence in Bangladesh. She is leading qualitative research to explore the impact of food, cash and behaviour change communication on women's experiences of violence. Michelle is also Co-Investigator for the 'Safe Schools' project in Zimbabwe, leading qualitative research to explore how interventions have improved school climate and prevented violence.
Michelle works with colleagues at the Gender, Violence and Health Centre on a project focused on decolonising violence against women. This includes leading a scoping review.
In 2022-2023, Michelle has also led a project on refugee participation with pump-priming funding, conducting a scoping review on refugee participation in gender equality and GBV research, as well as qualitative research with practitioners and academics about how they operationalise refugee participation in research.
From 2019-2020, Michelle worked in the Department of Global Health & Development at LSHTM, where she led the development of a social norms course for NGO practitioners working on child protection issues. Within this department, she has led qualitative research on agency and child marriage among NGO practitioners in Cameroon and Somalia, and completed a systematic review on corporal punishment and social norms.
Selected Publications
