Aubryn Sidle

Dr. Sidle co-founded the Girls’ Agency Lab (GAL) at AMPLIFY Girls, where she collaborates on feminist evaluation research projects with an outstanding team of scientists, practitioners, and 45 community-driven organizations located across five countries in East Africa. At GAL, Dr. Sidle supports a research portfolio related to the practice and measurement of adolescent girls’ agency, and the impact of African-led organizations on girls’ outcomes. Her recent projects include a four-country longitudinal study of adolescent girls’ agency (in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania), and a Randomized Control Trial and Process Tracing Study evaluating the Binti Shupavu (“Courageous Daughters”) program in Tanzania, funded by the Spencer Foundation. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she co-designed a qualitative study that was the first to document East African girls’ experiences of school lockdowns. For her dissertation research, she led the development and validation of a psychometric measure of adolescent girls’ agency in East Africa and continues to collaborate on ongoing work related to the AMPLIFY Agency measure and its validation in 5 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Locally, Dr. Sidle supports community nonprofits through a pro-bono consulting practice and through student project engagement in her courses. Dr. Sidle’s students produce program evaluation designs for nonprofits in the broader Ithaca area. Students in her Data & Development course produce data visualization dashboards to help community development agencies make decisions about program investment, growth and restructuring in upstate New York.

Grants

• “Validating a Measure of Girls’ Agency: a Five-Country Validation and Adaptation of the Amplify Agency Survey” (2023-2024, $1.5 million). Echidna Giving, Be that Girl Foundation, Antelope Foundation & Anonymous. Principal Investigator, with Brenda Oulo (Co-PI).
• “Does Mentoring Increase Girls’ Empowerment? A Mixed-Methods Experimental Evaluation of the Binti Shupavu in Tanzania.” (2022-2026, $396,000). The Spencer Foundation. A collaboration between AMPLIFY Girls, The University of Dar es Salaam, and the Girls’ Livelihood and Mentoring Initiative (GLAMI). Co-Principal Investigator with Brenda Oulo (PI), Eugenia Kafanabo (Co-Investigator, UDSM) and Monica Swai (Co-Investigator, GLAMI)
• “Understanding the Barriers to Girls School Return After COVID-related School Closures in East Africa.” Echidna Giving. (2020-2021, $117,000)  A collaboration with AMPLIFY Girls.
• “Soft Skills, Hard Outcomes: Emplacing Agency in Girls’ Education Practice.” Funded with generous support from Echidna Giving ($300,000), Einaudi Center at Cornell University, AWARE Project at Cornell University ($2,500). (2018-2020). Dissertation research completed under the supervision of Professor Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue.

Other Awards

• Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellow, $56,000 (awarded but declined), US Department of Education (2018)
• Advancing Women in Agriculture through Research and Education (AWARE) Fellowship, $2,500, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University (2018 )
• Engaged Cornell Research Fellow, $15,000, Cornell Office of Engaged Initiatives (2017)
• Honorable Mention, National Science Foundation Graduation Student Fellowship (2017)

• Sidle, A., & Oulo, B. (2023). Assessment of a Practitioner-Derived Framework for Measuring Girl’s Agency in East Africa. Comparative Education Review. 
• Sidle, A.A., Oulo, B., Osano, N. (2022) “Tracking Girls’ Agency: An Outcome Evaluation of Diverse Programming from Among Community-Driven Organizations in East Africa.” AMPLIFY Research Brief. Nairobi, Kenya.
• Oulo, B., Sidle, A.A., Kintzi, K., Mwangi, M., Akello, I. (2021) “Understanding the Barriers to Girls’ School Return: Girls’ Voices from the Frontline of the COVID-19 Pandemic in East Africa.” AMPLIFY Girls Research Brief. Nairobi, Kenya.
• Oulo, B., Sidle, A.A., Butler, M. (2021) “Stemming Pandemic-Related Losses in Girls’ Education: Promising Practice from the AMPLIFY Collective.” AMPLIFY Girls Research Brief. Nairobi, Kenya.
• Sidle, A.A. (2019) “Action on Agency: A Theoretical Framework for Defining and Operationalizing Agency in Girls’ Life Skills Programs.” Gendered Perspectives on International Development Working Paper Series, University of Michigan.           
• Sidle, A.A., Ahigika, D., Aszed, W., Bashuna, S., Belle, S., Bideri, D., Bohart, E., Butler, M., Fortunate, K.H., Fowler, Z., Kamau, L., Littman, J., Makumayenzi, V., Mariki, E., Mirisho, A., Musumba, P., Omare, M., Omondi, D., Oulo, B., Oyugi, D., Sarakikya, E., Wolf, K. (2019) “Measuring Girls’ Agency in East Africa—Co-Creating Contextually Specific Tools for Evaluation: Lessons from the AMPLIFY Girls Collective.” AMPLIFY White Paper. AMPLIFY Girls: Nairobi Kenya.
• Sidle, A.A., Stoebenau, K., Steinhaus, M. (2015). “Agency and Empowerment—An Assessment of AGE Africa’s CHATS Girls’ Club Program in Southern Malawi.” UNGEI Good Practice Fund Case Study Report. United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative. New York, NY.

Presentations

• Festo, D., Sidle, A.A. Paper presentation. (April 2022). “Can Mentoring Improve Girls’ Agency and Education? A Proposed Mixed Methods Evaluation of the Binti Shupavu Program in Tanzania.” Presented at the 66th annual conference of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES), in Minneapolis, MN.
• Sidle, A.A. Paper presentation. (April 2022). “COVID-related Pregnancy and Learning Loss: A Crisis in the Making for the Most Vulnerable Girls in East Africa.” Presented at the 66th annual conference of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES), in Minneapolis, MN.
• Sidle, A.A. Panel Chair. (April 2021). “Overcoming Pandemic Losses in Girls’ Education: Returning Adolescent Girls to School After COVID-Related School Closures.” Presented at the 65th annual conference of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES), virtual.
• Oulo, B., Sidle, A.A., Mwangi, M. Paper Presentation. (April 2021) “Understanding the Barriers to Girls’ School Return: Girls’ Voices from East Africa.” Presented at the 65th annual conference of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES), virtual.
• Sidle, A.A., Ahigika, D., Aszed, W., Bashuna, S., Belle, S., Bideri, D., Bohart, E., Butler, M., Fortunate, K.H., Fowler, Z., Kamau, L., Littman, J., Makumayenzi, V., Mariki, E., Mirisho, A., Musumba, P., Omare, M., Omondi, D., Oulo, B., Oyugi, D., Sarakikya, E., Wolf, K. Paper presentation. (March 2020). “Measuring Girls’ Agency in East Africa—Co-Creating Contextually Specific Tools for Evaluation: Lessons from the AMPLIFY Girls Collective.” Paper Presented at the 64th annual conference of the Comparative International Education Society (CIES), Miami Florida.
• Sidle, A.A. (March 2019). “Operationalizing a Local Definition of Agency in Girls’ Education Practice in East Africa.” Paper presented at the 63rd annual conference of the Comparative International Education Society Conference (CIES), in San Francisco California.
• Sidle, A.A. (October 20th 2018). “Action on Agency: A Theoretical Framework for Defining and Operationalizing Agency in Girls’ Education Practice.” Paper Presentation at the 7th annual Sociology of Development Conference, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Sidle, A.A. (October 10th, 2017). “Overcoming Challenges Empowering Girls: Spotlight on Promoting Girls’ Education and Ending Child Marriage.” Panelist at the House Foreign Affairs Committee International Day of the Girl Event, Washington DC.