Dr Arabella Fraser is a Research Fellow in Risk and Resilience specialising in urbanisation and risk. Arabella has worked on research projects related to livelihoods, vulnerability and governance for over 15 years, including projects for the World Bank, IIED, UNDP and Oxfam. In conjunction, she has held research and teaching posts at King’s College London, the University of Exeter, the London School of Economics and the Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas, Venezuela.

Arabella's countries of research experience include the Dutch Caribbean, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia and South Africa. She has worked on issues related to rural development, trade and development finance as well as disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

At ODI she specialises in issues related to the governance of urban disaster risk and climate change adaptation, the application of systems approaches to risk-sensitive urban development, new policy approaches for risk reduction in informal settlements and the linkages between urban violence and environmental risk. She is experienced in both qualitative as well as large-scale survey research methods. 

Prior to ODI she worked at King’s College London, managing and conducting research into the drivers of flood risk and vulnerability in urban coastal zones in Southern Europe and the Dutch Caribbean. She has managed and conducted research projects for the World Bank, IIED, UNDP and Oxfam as well as holding research and teaching posts at the University of Exeter, the London School of Economics and the Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas, Venezuela. 

Arabella has published in journals such as Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Planning Theory and Practice, Environment and Planning A, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction and Journal of Extreme Events and authored or co-authored over twenty policy briefs, technical reports and working papers. She is a regular lecturer and presenter, including invited talks at the Stockholm Resilience Conference and Oxfam Resilient Solutions Conference.

She holds a PhD and Masters from the London School of Economics, and a BA (Hons) from the University of Cambridge.