Esther Leah Achandi holds a PhD in Economics from University of Dar es Salaam and has over nine years of research experience in Eastern Africa, with experience in agricultural value chains and technologies, gender and consumer food preferences and, more recently, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) of vulnerable youth.

Currently, Esther is a Postdoctoral Fellow in gender at The International Livestock Research Institute serving in the Policies Institutions and Livelihood (PIL) program. Her work at ILRI is to analyze the role of different livestock species in endowing women with some degree of financial autonomy and deliver evidence on how this autonomy contributes to women empowerment. Her work is to support four country teams, namely Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam.

Esther has been a recipient of many awards/fellowships : 

• Recipient of Young Rice Scientist Award at the International Rice Congress, 2014 for her paper titled, “Market participation by smallholder rice farmers in Tanzania; A double hurdle Analysis.” She was among the three recipients of the award who came from Africa.

• Recipient of African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) Fellowship 2015. 
• Recipient of the Advanced Science Training placement award competitively offered under the AWARD fellowship in 2016.
• Steering Committee Member on the  IUSSP (International Union for the Scientific Study of Population) Panel on Population, Poverty and Inequality (2018-2021).