Stephanie Hirmer is a Senior Researcher in Energy Systems at the Energy and Power Group at the University of Oxford. She currently works on the Climate Compatible Growth Programme where is the Research Manager and lead of the Advanced GIS modelling workstream. She is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge where she completed her PhD and now delivers a course on Energy, Development and Rural Livelihood. She is a co-founder and Director of Research and Innovation at Rural Senses Ltd., a social enterprise that uses AI-enhanced data analysis and user-centric data collection to make it easy for project developers to understand rural community needs and evaluate project impacts efficiently and accurately.

Previously, Stephanie worked as a researcher for the Smart Villages Initiative and lived and worked in rural Uganda and Germany, where she worked as a consultant for the German Development Agency (GIZ). As part of this work she designed and implemented community-run hydropower schemes with local governments, worked on an up-scaling strategy for pico-hydropower and solar PV, and developed and implemented operation and maintenance procedures for the same projects. She has also successfully delivered projects for clients such as KfW, Dorsch Consulting, Arup, etc. Stephanie’s passion is on integrating community viewpoints into energy-related decision-making.