Celine Masheleni

I'm Celine Masheleni, a qualitative researcher interested in how people work, make decisions, and navigate everyday life. I design qualitative and mixed-methods research that helps organisations understand human behaviour, uncover opportunities, and make better product, service, and policy decisions.

Over the past eight years, I've led research across Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia using ethnography, in-depth interviews, participatory methods, and mixed-methods studies. My work often involves understanding people whose experiences are overlooked - from platform workers and informal traders to students, communities, and frontline professionals - and translating those insights into practical recommendations.

I enjoy working at the intersection of curiosity and decision-making. Whether I'm observing behaviour in the field, facilitating participatory workshops, or synthesising hundreds of interview transcripts, my goal is to identify patterns that help teams build better products, services, and programmes. Although much of my experience comes from international development and labour research, the questions I investigate are universal: How do people make decisions? Where do systems create friction? What motivates behaviour? These are the same questions that underpin effective user experience research.

My doctoral research explores how Uber drivers navigate digitally mediated work, examining trust, algorithmic management, uncertainty, and decision-making within platform ecosystems. The project combines ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and behavioural analysis to understand how people adapt to complex technologies in everyday life.