Magali Chelpi-den Hamer is an associate research fellow at IRIS. Her research focuses on international aid (linking development, humanitarian aid and social public policies), decentralized cooperation, armed conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the resilience of national education systems in situations of crisis. Specialist in Ivory Coast, she has taken an interest in transitional justice processes and the question of reparations to victims of the Ivorian crisis.

Before joining IRIS, Magali has lectured for several years at Aix-Marseille University, where she taught applied anthropology on development, humanitarian aid and Africa. At the beginning of her career, she worked as a program coordinator in several international NGOs (Atlas Logistique, Action against Hunger and International Rescue Committee), mainly in African countries, in situations of armed conflict. She has consulted for various organizations (World Bank, USAID, UNICEF, NORAD, Norwegian Refugee Council).

Magali holds a PhD in social anthropology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (granted with the highest honors) and a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Amsterdam. Since 2012, she has been associated with the Institut des mondes africains (IMAF), an interdisciplinary joint-research unit. She has published in French and English in academic peer-reviewed journals and is a member of the editorial board of the journal Anthropologie et développement. Her career has been shaped by constant back and forth between practice and theory