^{Photo credit: Marco J Haenssgen}

By Marco J Haenssgen

An inspiring session in the School for Cross-faculty Studies Research and Pedagogy Seminar was delivered last week by Associate Professor Giacomo Zanello from the University of Reading. Highlighting research using novel FitBit-like accelerometer devices in Ghana, India, and Nepal, Dr Zanello demonstrated how new forms of digital and sensor-based data collection can improve our understanding of people’s energy expenditure profiles during a day and across the seasons. This, in turn, opens new insights into:

• The link between agricultural development interventions and nutrition outcomes for different members of rural households
• The intra-household, gender-differentiated labour allocation and energy expenditure patterns
• The prevalence, depth, and severity of undernutrition in rural areas in developing countries

With a rapidly expanding research portfolio using accelerometers in areas such as climate change resilience and labour productivity in public works programmes, the relevance of Dr Zanello’s work in the context of Global Sustainable Development sparked lively discussion and methodological reflection.