Florence Dery

Florence Dery is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography, Geomatics and Environment (UTM) at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, Canada. In March 2023, she obtained her PhD from Queen’s University, Canada. Florence Dery’s research broadly focuses on the environment-health nexus, gender empowerment, development and global health.  She works on topics at the intersection of environment, development, and human health and wellbeing. Her doctoral research titled Promoting inclusive growth and wellbeing through women’s participation in the informal water and sanitation (WASH) sector in Ghana and Kenya was partly funded by the International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC). Findings from her doctoral dissertation show that the main risks faced by informal water and sanitation workers include injuries, environmental contamination, stigma, and work-life balance. Female informal water and sanitation workers face unique threats that could increase their risk of long-term health and safety effects. Florence Dery has experience in research that focuses on how access to resources (e.g. water, sanitation, and hygiene) influence health and wellbeing in resource-constrained settings. With her engagement in water & sanitation research in sub-Saharan Africa since 2018, she is fully engaged in promoting inclusive governance through research in line with the SDGs.