Women researchers are underrepresented in the field of economics, and they face career obstacles that their male colleagues don’t. To help level the playing field, the Women in Environmental Economics for Development (WinEED) program initiated a mentoring program aimed at women researchers who had submitted papers to EfD’s Annual Meeting 2025.

The response was positive, and a similar program is planned to be implemented in 2026.

The initiative, which ran from May to October, aimed to strengthen research quality and boost confidence among women in the EfD network.

The program offered three phases of mentoring: expert review, peer review, and presentation practice. Participants could choose one, two or all three phases.

Hannah Ngugi, a junior researcher at the University of Nairobi, is one of the participants. She is very enthusiastic about the program and how it helped her improve her paper and presentation.

“My mentor, Katrina Mullan, really walked that extra mile. She helped me describe the data better, improve the modeling, and gave me alternative ways to do things, such as estimate customers’ willingness to pay,” she says.

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