2026 | Rachel Franklin

The 2026 Finisterra Annual Lecture will take place on 19 November, and will be delivered by Rachel Franklin, Executive Director of the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University, entitled “Depopulation is a Geographical Phenomenon”.

About the speaker

She recently returned to the United States after seven years in the United Kingdom, where she worked at Newcastle University and led the Livability Research Group as part of the Alan Turing Institute’s Science of Cities and Regions programme.

A population geographer, Rachel’s primary research focus is the interplay between spatial analytics and demographic change, in particular quantifying patterns, sources, and impacts of spatial inequality. 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 does other things too: she is an editor of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, past editor of Geographical Analysis, and co-host of the GLaD podcast.

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