Population Studies and Training Center

Dr. Rachel Franklin is Executive Director of the Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA) at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the sources and impacts of demographic change as it occurs at multiple spatial scales, and in the use of novel forms of data and analysis to identify and address those changes. Franklin's recent projects include exploring how smart city technologies contribute to and reinforce socio-economic and spatial inequalities and examining regional inequality, population loss, and shrinkage at the local and regional scales.

Franklin began her professional career in 2002 as a statistician demographer for the US Census Bureau, and in 2007 became Deputy Director of the American Association of Geographers. She also served in lecturer positions at the University of Maryland from 2004–2009, before joining Brown University in 2010 as Associate Director of Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4) and associated faculty in Population Studies. 

Prior to joining the CGA, Franklin was a full professor of geographical analysis at Newcastle University’s Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies and led Newcastle Data. She currently serves as Group Leader for Liveability in the Urban Analytics Programme at the Alan Turing Institute and is a visiting professor at Gran Sasso Science Institute in Italy.