Moira Alejandra Cornejo Zambrana

PhD student

Department of agricultural economics
Agri-food marketing and consumer behavior
Ghent University
Coupure Links 653
9000 Ghent, Belgium

Moira.CornejoZambrana@UGent.be

Bio

Moira Alejandra Cornejo Zambrana is a Bolivian economist and financial engineer currently preparing her doctoral research in agricultural and development economics within a sandwich PhD framework shared between Ghent University (Belgium) and Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (Bolivia). Her academic and professional background combines economics, development studies, and climate-related research, with a particular focus on vulnerable high-Andean contexts.
She holds an Advanced Master’s degree in Globalisation and Development from the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, where she graduated with distinction. Alongside her academic training, she has gained research and policy-oriented experience through collaborations with international organizations such as IFAD and CIVICUS, contributing to evaluations and studies on rural development, climate change, civil society and livelihoods. Her work often combines qualitative fieldwork with socio-economic analysis and involves close engagement with local actors and institutions.

Research

Her research interests lie at the intersection of agricultural economics, climate change, and development. She is particularly interested in how climate and market pressures shape livelihoods, innovation adoption, and resilience strategies among high-Andean farming communities. Her recent and ongoing research is connected to the VLIR-TEAMS project “Co-creation, innovation adoption and market insertion for climate-vulnerable farmers in high-Andean communities in Bolivia”, which aims to better understand barriers and opportunities for sustainable innovation in climate-sensitive agri-food systems.

More broadly, her work engages with themes of informality, rural–urban linkages, migration, and governance, with an emphasis on the Global South.

Keywords

Agricultural Economics
Climate Change and Adaptation
High-Andean Farming Systems
Innovation Adoption
Informality and Livelihoods
Migration and Resilience
Sustainable Development

Education

Moira holds a Bachelor’s degree in Financial Engineering from the Bolivian Catholic University “San Pablo”, with training in market analysis, financial systems, and development-oriented economic analysis. She completed her Advanced Master’s degree in Globalisation and Development at the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, where her thesis examined the reproduction of informality in one of Bolivia’s largest urban markets through qualitative fieldwork and interviews.

She is currently completing a Bachelor’s degree in Economics at Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), with a focus on development economics and socio-environmental dynamics. In addition, she was an Erasmus+ ICM exchange student at Uppsala University (Sweden), where she followed advanced courses in global development, sustainability, and gender and economics.