Emilie Filou

Emilie Filou was the winner of the 2004 Nico Colchester Fellowship. She spent her internship at the foreign desk of The Economist.

Emilie was born in Paris, France, where she lived until she was 18. She then decided to spend a year in Nepal with the charity SPW before going to university. She read geography at Merton College, Oxford, where she had to endure colouring-in jokes for three years. Her dissertation on health care provision for nomadic people in Niger won her the National Earthscan Prize for best undergraduate dissertation in development studies in the country.

Since finishing her course in 2002, Emilie has travelled extensively in Australia, New Zealand, French-speaking Africa and Asia. She has freelanced for various magazines and her photographs have been exhibited and published in France and the UK.

Emilie now works as a freelance business journalist specialising on Africa and the environment. She is also an author for Lonely Planet guidebooks and has contributed to books on France and West Africa.