Sofie Burgos-Thorsen
Sofie Burgos-Thorsen holds a MSc in Sociology from University of Copenhagen and a PhD degree in Urban Innovation, Design Justice, and Data Science from the Techno-Anthropology Lab, Aalborg University. She has spent 4 years in the R&D team of global urban planning company Gehl Architects, and continues to work with innovation of digital tools between practice and research, using AI, computational analysis, and visual methods to rethink methods for studying public life within architecture and urban planning. With projects like 'Do You Live in a Bubble?' and the 'Urban Belonging Project', she combines Design Justice and Data Feminism frameworks to explore how various forms of visual data (from social media images to photovoice and collective map-making) can be used in participatory manner to rethink the toolbox of citizen engagement and foreground the voices of marginalised communities in urban planning and policy. Focused on mapping how different groups form place attachments in the city, her research challenges universalistic assumptions and cartographic conventions, producing alternative modes of knowing and mapping urban issues in the city through the eyes of its citizens. In the process, she co-creates digital tools and data infrastructures that are built on visions of a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive future.