Rachel Frankiln

Rachel is Executive Director of the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University. She likes new, old, and big data, especially when it’s spatial and particularly when it’s deployed in response to new, old, and big societal challenges—right now she’s especially excited about satellite imagery for social science and health research and policymaking. Rachel’s primary research focus is in spatial inequality, especially the interplay between spatial analytics and demographic change. She also highly values disciplinary community: she is cross-disciplinary editor for the Annals of the AAG and past editor of Geographical Analysis. For academic fun, she co-hosts the GlaD (Geography, Life and Data) podcast with Dani Arribas-Bel and Levi Wolf.