Dr. Francisca M. Rojas

Dr. Francisca M. Rojas is Research Director of the Transparency Policy Project, which is affiliated with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She holds a doctorate in urban and regional planning and a Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B.S. from the University of Michigan. Her recent work examines the social and political implications of information and communications technologies on systems of urban governance, development, and planning. At the Transparency Policy Project, Rojas leads investigations into the effectiveness of transparency initiatives that employ digital technologies to assist in the disclosure and dissemination of information.

Previously, Rojas was a researcher at MIT’s SENSEable City Lab and participated in groundbreaking projects that employed digital data to reveal large-scale urban dynamics, including the New York Talk Exchange, featured at MoMA in 2008, and Real Time Rome, shown at the 2006 Venice Biennale. Her dissertation work expanded on the New York Talk Exchange project to further investigate how telecommunications mediate international migration. As a practitioner, Rojas has experience working in public sector agencies, including as project planner for the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative in the Washington D.C. Office of Planning, and as a member of the team of advisors to the Minister of Housing and Urban Development in Santiago, Chile. Honors include a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the AT&T fellowship with the MIT SENSEable City Lab, and an MIT presidential fellowship.