Andreea Raluca Torre

Andreea Raluca Torre is a Senior Research Fellow at SEI Africa, leading the Gender, Environment and Justice Cluster.

She is a social scientist and qualitative researcher working at the intersection of gender, development, and environment, with over 15 years of experience across research, policy, and learning in Africa, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, and Europe. Her work brings together strong academic and applied expertise, with a consistent focus on how gendered power relations and social inequalities shape and are shaped by climate change, environmental governance, and processes of human mobility. 

She joined SEI Asia in 2017 as a Research Fellow in Gender, Environment and Development. At SEI Asia, using interdisciplinary research and collaborative approaches, her work focused on integrating intersectional gender analysis across research for policy on human mobility in the context of climate change, natural resource management, disaster risk reduction, and climate adaptation. In this role, she also contributed to advisory and collaborative processes with ASEAN, and in collaboration with regional and national actors, and research partners to strengthen gender-responsive and socially inclusive approaches to environmental governance. 

Passionate about the critical role that social sciences play in environmental research, policy and programmatic work, at SEI Africa Andreea leads the Gender, Environment and Justice Cluster with a focus on supporting the Centre’s work on informing policy and evidence-based decision making for climate-resilient and just societies in the region and beyond. In collaboration with national, regional and international partners, she guides and co-leads the gender and social inclusion components of major projects on inclusive climate finance and the economics of climate change, as well as across SEI’s broader agenda on Just-Transitions, including circular bioeconomy, sustainable resource use, and plastic waste and pollution challenges. She also supports SEI Africa’s engagement in multi-stakeholder processes on gender and environmental justice, including co-hosting the first Women’s Environment Assembly, together with the UNEP Women’s Major Group, alongside the UNEA-7. Andreea is the SEI Africa focal point for the Gender Equality, Social Equity and Poverty (GESEP) Community of Practice that aims to strengthen the Institute capacities for intersectional gender and social analysis.   

Before joining SEI Asia, Andreea served as a Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of the South Pacific (USP), Fiji Islands, where she led postgraduate teaching and research on qualitative and feminist methodologies, and the intersection between intra-regional mobilities, labour migration governance,  gender, and development. Currently she coordinates the online, faculty wide, postgraduate course on Advanced Research Methodologies in the Development Studies Programme. 

Andreea has consulted for research for policy institutes (COMPAS; CesPI), as well as for international and regional organizations, including UN agencies (UNICEF, UN Women; UNEP; IOM; FES; ADPC). Those engagements have spanned countries across Asia and the South Pacific (Fiji Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Thailand, Nepal), Europe (UK, Italy, Ukraine, Romania), Southeast Africa (Kenya, Mozambique), and Latin America (Ecuador). She holds a PhD in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE), and an MSc in Social Anthropology from the University College London (UCL).