Arianna Pacifico, PhD is an Education Researcher at the Airbel Impact Lab, supporting IRC’s global research agenda including the Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) programme, an ambitious FCDO-funded project that aims to build a rigorous body of research evidence about what works to improve access, quality, continuity of education, and learning children in conflict affected settings.

Before joining the IRC, Arianna served as an Adjunct Instructor at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. She received her PhD in International Comparative Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and her MS in Global Affairs at New York University. Arianna’s research focuses on education in contexts of conflict, crisis and forced displacement, the political economy of aid, and refugee inclusion in national education systems. Her work examines how to support education for the world's most vulnerable populations in ways that are at scale, cost-effective and contribute to sustainable peace and development across a range of contexts including Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

Previously she coordinated the Standards and Practice Working Group at the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) building inter-agency coalitions to advance the global education in emergencies agenda.