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Rachel Franklin 🦚

@rsfrankl.bsky.social
4.3K followers 1.1K following 628 posts

Population Geographer | Spatial Demographer. Partial to words like orthogonal + heterodox. Also very partial to shoes. rachelfranklin.org + rachelfranklin.substack.com

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Reposted by Rachel Franklin 🦚
Institute for Quantitative Social Science @ Harvard @iqss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Friday and Saturday: @cga-harvard.bsky.social turns 20, marking the anniversary with two days of keynotes, panels, and workshops on where spatial research goes next. gis.harvard.edu/2026-cga-con... #GIS #GeographicAnalysis #SpatialData
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Dani Arribas-Bel @darribas.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
New #GLaDpodcast episode just dropped: how to give (bad) talks! @rsfrankl.bsky.social, @levijohnwolf.bsky.social and I dont presume to know how to give good talks but, when it comes to bad ones, we have a stock of experience to share! www.podbean.com/ew/pb-6gdus-...
podbean.com
How to give (bad) talks
Today, we’re talking about talks. Specifically, about *bad* talks. Speaking in public is such a core part of the academic life. We get jobs through it, we share ideas with our community, and we someti...
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Maps as praxis! Ran every street in Cambridge, MA, made lots of maps about it…and also bored everyone I know about it… A magical experience I just had to write about. rachelfranklin.substack.com/p/geography-...
rachelfranklin.substack.com
Geography Antics
Running every street in Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Dani Arribas-Bel @darribas.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
New #GLaDpodcast episode: #embeddings for the rest of us! Join @rsfrankl.bsky.social, @levijohnwolf.bsky.social and yours truly for a (hopefully) “lay enough” conversation about one of the most interesting ideas in geo-data that the last few years have produced. www.podbean.com/eas/pb-8ebk6...
podbean.com
Embeddings for the rest of us
Today, we’re talking about embeddings. Unless you’ve been living… well, I don’t know where, you might have heard of the term generative AI. At the core of this technology is an obscure idea, word embe...
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Steven Ruggles @stevenruggles.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
My new @ipums analysis of the “Pig in the Python” argues that the demand for young workers will grow dramatically over the coming decades, likely leading to rising wages, stronger unions, and lower inequality. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
New York Times illustration of the age distribution in the shape of a python, from 1970.
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Dani Arribas-Bel @darribas.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Talking about babies (and _everything_ around them) was trickier on tape than on paper, but I think it was worth the effort, audience be the judge!
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Mia Gray @mia-gray.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
A really important topic for academics - having children - and one that still doesn't get much airtime.
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
🎧 Our new #GLaDpodcast episode—Baby Talk—is all about, yeah, babies. Plus the academic life course, careers and the messy business of advice and decisionmaking. What's not to love?! With @darribas.bsky.social @levijohnwolf.bsky.social & @pietrostefani.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/5TDJ...
open.spotify.com
Episode 32: Baby Talk
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Institute for Quantitative Social Science @ Harvard @iqss.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
#CallForPapers for the 2026 CGA Conference, celebrating the CGA's 20th anniversary with the theme "Celebrating Geographic Analysis: Past, Present, and Future.” See the details: gis.harvard.edu/call-papers-... #CGA20 #Harvard #GIS #SpatialAnalysis @cga-harvard.bsky.social
gis.harvard.edu
Call for Papers: 2026 CGA Conference
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Wonder if that’s straight line or network distance
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
📍 The call for papers is out for the @cga-harvard.bsky.social 20th Anniversary Annual Conference and we'd love to see you here! Harvard's pretty nice in autumn and we expect a fabulous lineup of keynotes, panels, talks, and workshops...plus lots of time to catch up and network! #CGA20
Call for papers text.
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Emily Moin @emilymoin.com · 26/03/2026
Cleaning data may not be sexy... or exciting... or enjoyable... or lucrative... or respected... or rewarded... or recognized... but at least it's... sorry, what were we talking about?
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
In case of “fire”
Photo of a door that reads “fire” with quotation marks
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Scott Shapiro @scottjshapiro.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
“KID, WE NEED YOUR GAS”
Trump yelling at kid mowing lawn meme
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Institute for Quantitative Social Science @ Harvard @iqss.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Looking to build up your #Rprogramming skills? Learn how to use R for #spatialanalysis in this week's workshop from the @cga-harvard.bsky.social. #GIS #geostatistics #programming #Harvard gis.harvard.edu/event/gettin...
iq.harvard.edu
Getting Started with Spatial Analysis in R | The Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Breadcrumbs
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
This is fish erasure
Screenshot of spelling bee failure to accept plaice as a word
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Antisocial behavior
Photo of a wall of snow blocking a nicely cleared sidewalk
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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Why do I have to pretend that I'm going to print something in order to save it as a PDF. Why do I have to engage in a little ruse.
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Institute for Quantitative Social Science @ Harvard @iqss.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Coming up on Feb 24: @crhistianjoel.bsky.social presents "From classrooms to regions: the scale of inequality and educational aspirations" in the next brown bag presentation from @cga-harvard.bsky.social. #gis gis.harvard.edu/event/classr...
gis.harvard.edu
From classrooms to regions: the scale of inequality and educational aspirations | Center for Geographic Analysis
Breadcrumbs
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Research@LivUni @livuniresearch.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Congratulations to @levijohnwolf.bsky.social and our very own @darribas.bsky.social and @rsfrankl.bsky.social for winning a Media Achievement Honor from the @geographers.bsky.social! @liverpooluni.bsky.social 👉 www.linkedin.com/posts/sdr-im...
linkedin.com
The GLaD Podcast | The GLaD Podcast | Imago – SDR UK Imagery Data Service
Congratulations to Levi John Wolf and our very own Dani Arribas-Bel and Rachel Franklin for winning a Media Achievement Honor from the American Association of Geographers! Dani, Rachel and Levi creat...
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Post a tree you photographed
Sycamore Gap tree, RIP
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Dani Arribas-Bel @darribas.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
New episode of the one and only #GLaDpodcast. For this one, @rsfrankl.bsky.social , @levijohnwolf.bsky.social and yours truly dust off our oracles to speculate what 2026 (whatever is left of it anyway) has in store for Geography, Life, Geography Life, and Data! www.podbean.com/eas/pb-8urep...
podbean.com
Episode 30: Predictions for (the rest of) 2026
Happy new year!!! We know, we know, we’ve been in 2026 for a while already (already too long?). But this is the first episode we recorded this year, the first one with Levi as a dad (yay!), and one wh...
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Two star-crossed sheep on a wuthering Yorkshire moor, fated never to consummate their love Bleated Rivalry
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Gabriel Agostini @gsagostini.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Our paper “Inferring fine-grained migration patterns across the United States” is now out in @natcomms.nature.com! We released a new, highly granular migration dataset. 1/9
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Institute for Quantitative Social Science @ Harvard @iqss.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Thursday at 3:30 pm: @harvardcmes.bsky.social fellow Evangeline McGlynn discusses the use of open source intelligence in wars and other violent conflicts, presenting "Open Data/Opaque Analysis: Examining #OSINT Use in Conflict," hosted by @cga-harvard.bsky.social. gis.harvard.edu/event/open-d...
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Ken Jennings @kenjennings.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
you have wonder if the problem was “world,” “facts,” or “books”
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Good morning to everyone but the City of Cambridge for producing a map that appears to show no fewer than three different kinds of "being in Cambridge." (this matters for those who might, just hypothetically speaking, be trying to run every street in the city)
Piece of a map of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which shows a city boundary, buildings in the city, and streets in the city. None of which line up.
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
At approximately 4am this morning, deeply concerned I might starve on my flights from Newcastle to Boston, I stuffed an entire unsliced panettone into my backpack.
Photo of an entire panettone stuffed into my backpack
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
🛰️ Embeddings for the rest of us! All part of our Imago mission to make satellite imagery useful, usable, and used in social research and policy! Team Imago* are at MHCLG today to talk imagery, embeddings & why research/policy folks should care. * @darribas.bsky.social @pietrostefani.bsky.social ++
Screenshot of lecture 1 from our embeddings workshopPhoto of Dani lecturing on autoencodersPhoto of a busy workshop room
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Ross Mudie @rmudie96.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Very swish visual from @centreforcities.bsky.social showing the income distributions of different neighbourhoods within our big towns and cities
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
My hot take is that sometimes reviewer 2 is right and authors maybe fail to situate their paper within the wider context of their other published work. And maybe sometimes authors do this out of hopes reviewers won’t notice that the current paper doesn’t do anything new.
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
This is fine
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Dani Arribas-Bel @darribas.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
A bit late to post about, new episode w/ @rsfrankl.bsky.social and @levijohnwolf.bsky.social of the #GLaDpodcast. If nothing else, be enticed by the title; if something else, delight in Anthony Robinson’s views on maps, AI, and microwave ovens! gladpodcast.podbean.com/e/episode-29...
gladpodcast.podbean.com
Episode 29: The oldest profession in geography | The GLaD Podcast
Come for the catchy episode title, stay for the wide-reaching discussion about spatial data, visualization, and cartography. We're joined this time by Anthony Robinson, from Pennsylvania State Univers...
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
I'm just a girl, standing in front a journal submission system, once again being asked "where my ancestors first originated"
Elsevier author "diversity" questionnaire that wants to know where my ancestors first originated, which is a pretty dumb thing to ask
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American Association of Geographers @geographers.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
📣 Call for Abstracts! This special issue of the Annals of the AAG aims to take stock of where we are today in terms of geographic theory. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by March 31, 2026. View the full set of submission guidelines: buff.ly/NTKmVCp
Call for Abstracts
21st Century Geographic Theory
Annals of the American Association of Geographers 
2028 Special Issue
This special issue aims to take stock of where we are today in terms of geographic theory: what it is; how, by whom, and for whom it’s produced and used; and how its form varies (or doesn’t) over time, space, and disciplinary sub-field.Expansive in its definition of “theory”
This issue asks what, if anything, is radically different and paradigm changing about 21st century geography research, academia, etc. that would engender the need for new theories, how they’re developed, how they’re tested, and how they’re applied. A goal of this special issue is to start conversations—not simply re-till well-trodden ground; contributions from those earlier in their careers are very definitely welcomed!
This special issue is expansive in its definition of “theory,” including more traditional understandings of theory as well as (but not limited to):

Theories of learning and knowing geography
Theories of common geographic understanding
Generative theories of geographic space
Theories of representing and/or mapping geographic space
Theory and geographic foundation models for prediction
Unified geographic theory
Bottom-up and top-down theories of geography
Submissions are especially solicited that are in conversation with the entire breadth of the discipline.
Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by 
March 31, 2026. 

The Editor will consider all abstracts by June 1, 2026, and invite a selection to submit full papers for peer review.
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Heather Randell @heatherrandell.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
The Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota (@minnpop.bsky.social) is hiring a postdoc in Population Health. Happy to chat about the MPC, UMN, and the Twin Cities, which are all awesome in my humble opinion! pop.umn.edu/training/pos...
APPLY NOW:
Postdoctoral Fellowship Available
Population Health Training Program

JOIN OUR INNOVATIVE PROGRAM!

Fellows in this Population Health Science Training Program work closely with academic mentors in social and health science fields to build skills in interdisciplinary population health research to prepare them for academic careers focused on addressing pressing public health problems. We seek
exceptional candidates in either social science or health science fields who have earned a PhD to join our diverse and accomplished cohort of trainees, and we particularly welcome candidates from backgrounds underrepresented in research.
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Karen Benjamin Guzzo @karenguzzo.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Population & Development Review is seeking applications for Editor(s)! For more info, visit popcouncil.org/wp-content/u...
Picture of the PDF linked in the post about PDR editors.
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R @liburghal.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
There is always an XKCD
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
Never look a gift citation in the mouth
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
📍 What is the oldest profession in geography and why should you care about it in 2026? The #GLaDpodcast has answers (and 🔥 takes)! No spoilers 🤐 but @darribas.bsky.social, @levijohnwolf.bsky.social & I are joined this time by special guest @arobinson.bsky.social. open.spotify.com/episode/02JW...
open.spotify.com
Episode 29: The oldest profession in geography
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Anthony Robinson @arobinson.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
I had so much fun talking to my favorite podcasters at GLaD! cc: @pennstategeography.bsky.social
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Jessica Hullman @jessicahullman.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
“It’s open season on the unabashedly earnest” feels right lately. In 1967 Brackman called it “the put-on”: ambiguity that makes you question if you're a sucker I wrote abt how genAI scales put-ons & erodes signs of sincerity, & which I hope stay sacred statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/01/07/i...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
It’s open season on the unabashedly earnest | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
📍 What is the oldest profession in geography and why should you care about it in 2026? The #GLaDpodcast has answers (and 🔥 takes)! No spoilers 🤐 but @darribas.bsky.social, @levijohnwolf.bsky.social & I are joined this time by special guest @arobinson.bsky.social. open.spotify.com/episode/02JW...
open.spotify.com
Episode 29: The oldest profession in geography
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
📣 Calling all geographers! I'm editing a special issue of the @geographers.bsky.social Annals on "21st Century Geographic Theory" and the call for abstracts is out! Please consider contributing and sharing! All geographers, all kinds of theory welcome! 🌎 Details here: www.aag.org/journal/anna...
Screenshot of call for abstracts
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
And it all starts with a title that makes sense to someone who has no idea yet whether they want to make time to review your work.
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
📣 Calling all geographers! I'm editing a special issue of the @geographers.bsky.social Annals on "21st Century Geographic Theory" and the call for abstracts is out! Please consider contributing and sharing! All geographers, all kinds of theory welcome! 🌎 Details here: www.aag.org/journal/anna...
Screenshot of call for abstracts
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Alexandra Petri @petridishes.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
here’s hoping 2026 is just one year
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
Quantitative geographer street cred
The numbers 2026 spelled out in street segments
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Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
Quantitative geographer street cred
The numbers 2026 spelled out in street segments
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