Lauren Parnell Marino is a Research Associate with the World Bank’s Africa Region Gender Innovation Lab and a Ph.D. candidate in Development Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include women’s empowerment, women’s labor force participation, and structural barriers to gender equality. Lauren was previously a U.S. Student Fulbright Scholar in Uganda and a George J. Mitchell Scholar in Ireland. She holds an M.A. in Gender, Globalization, and Human Rights from the University of Galway and a B.S. in Social Policy and History from Northwestern University.