Annabel Erulkar PhD is a social scientist with over 25 years’ experience in sub-Saharan
Africa. Her work focusses on research and programs related to adolescents, with a special emphasis on gender, child marriage and child labor. She heads the Population Council’s office in Ethiopia and is principal investigator for several multi-country projects on the continent. She was the principal investigator for the Berhane Hewan program, named UNFPA’s best practice for adolescents and youth and cited by U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama.

Erulkar has authored more than 100 reports and journal articles related to adolescence in sub-Saharan Africa, including child marriage, child labor, schooling, livelihoods and migration. She has coordinated large adolescent projects in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Based on her work on child marriage, she has testified in U.K. Parliament and has hosted field visits and learning tours from Melinda Gates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, Gro Brundtland, and numerous parliamentarians and congressmen. She holds an MSc in population sciences from Harvard University and a PhD in social statistics from the University of Southampton, UK.