Dr Sonia Hoque

Sonia Ferdous Hoque is an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist, with her research focusing on how social, institutional, and environmental processes produce and reproduce inequalities in the face of social-ecological change in the Global South. She is a Senior Research Associate in Water Security and Society for the 100 million initiative, working with global partners to design scalable solutions for water services in schools and clinics in Bangladesh (SafePani) and Zambia (SafeManzi). She won the ‘SoGE Engagement and Impact Award 2025’ in recognition of her research and policy engagement work that led the Government of Bangladesh to co-fund the ‘SafePani’ model from 2025 to 2030. She holds advisory roles at Uptime Global and UNICEF Zambia, and co-led the national level assessment of rural water services in Asia and the Pacific for the Asian Development Bank.

Between 2016 and 2024, her research under the REACH Programme combined empirical fieldwork with methodological innovation to examine the socio-spatial dimensions of water insecurity in Asia and Africa. Her book, The Water Diaries (Cambridge University Press, 2025) narrates how economic, environmental, and social conditions shape daily water use and insecurity in Bangladesh and Kenya. She led the quantitative work package of the Water InSecurity, Equity and Resilience (WISER) study (2022–24) which examined how intra-household decision-making processes shape gendered experiences of water insecurity. Her work on urban river pollution in Dhaka linked to the global fashion industry has gained international recognition, including being interviewed for the documentary BESTSELLER PÅ VRANGEN (aired on the TV 2 Denmark, 2025) and ‘Fair Water?’ exhibitions at the Oxford Natural History Museum (2023-24), the National Museum of Bangladesh (2025), and the Alaya Museum (2025) in Manila.

She leads the ‘Water Society Interactions and Sustainable Development’ module and co-leads the ‘Research Design and Skills’ module of the MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management at SoGE. She also co-leads the ‘Water Inequalities, Sustainability and Enterprise’ module of the MSc in Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment at the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment. She is also the Co-Chair of the Oxford Water Network.

Sonia’s PhD research at the University of Leeds (2016) explored the differential livelihood adaptation to social-ecological change in coastal Bangladesh. She has an MSc in Environmental Management (2011) from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a BSc in Environmental Science (2009) from North South University, Dhaka.

Prior to joining her PhD program, Sonia worked as a Research Associate at the Institute of Water Policy (IWP), NUS (2011 - 2013), where her research focused on the roles of private and public sector in urban water governance and water tariffs in urban domestic and non-domestic sectors.