Dr Lorena Lombardozzi is a Lecturer in Economics at the School of Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Development, and Geography (PPEDG) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) at the Open University. She is also a visiting Lecturer at SOAS, University of London. She completed her PhD thesis in Economics at SOAS, University of London (fully funded by SOAS Economics dpt.) with a title ‘A nexus between the role of the state, market transition and food consumption: The case of Uzbekistan’. Lorena holds a MSc from SOAS in Political Economy of Development (fully-funded). She received a previous Masters in Development Economics from University La Sapienza of Rome, Italy. Before returning to academia Lorena worked as a development economist in Latina America in 2014, in Uzbekistan for the regional office of UNODC in Central Asia from 2010 to 2012, and between 2007 and 2010 with the European Commission and the Italian Ministry of Foreign affairs in the field of development economics, trade and environmental policy. Her research interests relate to the theoretical debates on political economy, inequality, growth and distribution as well as to applied areas of international development in Central Asia and post-Soviet countries, gender and feminist economics, labour, work and wellbeing, agro-industrial policy and innovation, food system and commodity value chains, and research methods in Economics.