Rachel S. Franklin

Rachel Franklin 🦚

@rsfrankl.bsky.social

4.2K followers 1.1K following 620 posts

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

rachelfranklin.org + rachelfranklin.substack.com

Videos

Economics 43%

Political science 17%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Pinned

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · Nov 11

Day 10 #30DayMapChallenge (pen and paper) is my feeble back-of-the-envelope attempt to understand the route Billy Joel’s Downeaster Alexa is taking—especially how she can be en route to the Vineyard from Block Island Sound but tonight be Nantucket bound. Makes no sense. #geosky

A bad map of New England geography showing the stops Billy’s Joel’s Downeaster Alexa makes.

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 4d

Two star-crossed sheep on a wuthering Yorkshire moor, fated never to consummate their love

Bleated Rivalry

Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 4d

Two development randomistas develop a secret love affair in the field

Treated Rivalry

Alan Baxter @alanbaxter.bsky.social · 4d

The two best shitposters on Bluesky secretly pine for each other.

Skeeted Rivalry

Reposted by Rachel S. Franklin

Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 4d

Two development randomistas develop a secret love affair in the field

Treated Rivalry

Alan Baxter @alanbaxter.bsky.social · 4d

The two best shitposters on Bluesky secretly pine for each other.

Skeeted Rivalry

Ron Hogan @ronhogan.bsky.social · 4d

The two best whiskey distillers in the country secretly pine for each other.

Peated Rivalry.

Reposted by Mor Naaman, Rafael H. M. Pereira, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham , and 3 more Mor Naaman, Rafael H. M. Pereira, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Rachel S. Franklin, Evan Roberts, Clark Gray

Gabriel Agostini @gsagostini.bsky.social · 4d

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

Reposted by Rachel S. Franklin

Institute for Quantitative Social Science @ Harvard @iqss.bsky.social · 4d

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...

Reposted by Rachel S. Franklin

Ken Jennings @kenjennings.bsky.social · 5d

you have wonder if the problem was “world,” “facts,” or “books”

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 8d

I’ve been using parking permit signs as my unofficial delimiter so far.

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 8d

😆😆

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 8d

They should have called it New Cambridge. Would have saved a lot of confusion.

Reposted by Steven M. Manson

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 8d

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.

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 9d

The ladies can all have a little syphilis for a treat!

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 9d

Feeling peckish now and realizing I might not have thought this through.

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 9d

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

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 13d

In the delightful position that Team Imago is so big it's impossible to list everyone here today in one post 😆: @batoolmm.bsky.social, Vitaly Kryukov, Ron Mahabir, Fang Chen, Behzad Shokouhi, @martinapardy.bsky.social

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 13d

🛰️ 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 workshop

Reposted by Rachel S. Franklin

Ross Mudie @rmudie96.bsky.social · 14d

Very swish visual from @centreforcities.bsky.social showing the income distributions of different neighbourhoods within our big towns and cities

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 17d

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.

CHOAM Nomsky @samthielman.com · 18d

I just thought everyone should see this

Dr Kareem Carr
man: i wish to publish
@kareem_carr
Jan 21
reviewer 2: your paper is no good
man: i'll do anything to improve
reviewer 2: it's simple. you must read the work of the great scientist Pagliarini
man: *bursts into tears* but i am Pagliarini
Andre Pagliarini
@apagliar
Jan 21
a first: in rejecting an article I submitted to a journal, reviewer 2 noted I failed to engage the work of one Andre Pagliarini
Jan 21, 2026 • 3:47 PM UTC

CHOAM Nomsky @samthielman.com · 18d

I just thought everyone should see this

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 18d

This is fine

FactPost @factpostnews.bsky.social · 18d

Vance on the economy:

"You don't turn the Titanic around overnight"

FactPost @factpostnews.bsky.social · 18d

Vance on the economy:

"You don't turn the Titanic around overnight"

Reposted by Rachel S. Franklin

Dani Arribas-Bel @darribas.bsky.social · 19d

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...

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...

gladpodcast.podbean.com

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 20d

Or, what if you're American working in the UK? Pretty sure that doesn't make your ancestors North American. Dumbest question ever.

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 20d

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

Reposted by Rachel S. Franklin

American Association of Geographers @geographers.bsky.social · 21d

📣 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.

Rachel Franklin 🦚 @rsfrankl.bsky.social · 24d

Friendship Heights

Reposted by Silvia Secchi, Rachel S. Franklin

Reposted by Caroline Krafft, Lesley A. Hall, Kris Inwood , and 5 more Caroline Krafft, Lesley A. Hall, Kris Inwood, Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Steven M. Manson, Rachel S. Franklin, Evan Roberts, Clark Gray

Heather Randell @heatherrandell.bsky.social · 28d

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...