Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m an Urban Planner from Chile finishing my PhD in Planning at the University of Liverpool. After graduating from the Catholic University of Chile, I worked in consultancy and local government. A few years later, I received a scholarship to study a master’s degree at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (Erasmus University Rotterdam). When I was working on my master’s thesis, I realised I wanted to pursue a career in research. While searching for literature on planning cultures, I contacted my current PhD supervisor, who encouraged me to apply for a PhD in Liverpool.

What are you passionate about?

I’m mainly interested in how and why urban inequalities appear in the built environment, and how urban policies can address them. If you studied social sciences in South America (and particularly in Chile), it is difficult not to be concerned about social inequalities. Since I chose a planning degree, my interest has focused more on the built environment inequalities, especially why the places where people live are so different depending on their social class, and how policies address them.

When I moved to Liverpool, I saw researching England as an opportunity to learn about a new context. In my PhD, I’ve been focusing on planning deregulation, its roots in urban political economy, and its effects on precarious housing and neighbourhoods. I’m exploring how neoliberal actors have used diverse discursive and political strategies to introduce deregulatory policies that have led to the commodification of housing.

Now I realise that, despite the topics and contexts having varied, all my undergraduate and postgraduate theses have been about modifications to planning regulations and their effects on housing and the built environment. So, I think I have always been interested in applied urban policy and the intersection between theory and policy outcomes.

What are you working on these days?

I’m currently writing the final pages of my PhD while also applying for postdoctoral positions. These past few months have been quite intense, but I’m glad that most of the work is done and that I think I did a good PhD. Although now I feel a bit of uncertainty about the future, I’m looking forward to researching new topics.

What brings you to PLPR?

My supervisor encouraged me to attend the PLPR conference in Munich, which was my first international conference. I didn’t know what to expect besides presenting my research, but it turned out to be much more than that. The conference was very helpful for my research, and it was great to connect with other PhD students and researchers working on similar topics. If your PhD is not part of a wider research project, your daily work routine can get a bit lonely, so events like these are a great way to recharge.

What do you like most about PLPR?

Obviously, we attend conferences because they are in the interest of our work, but there are so many that you have to choose which to attend. At PLPR conferences, it is easy to approach researchers you may be reading, engage with presenters after sessions, or meet people during expeditions in the host city. But I think what I like the most is that organisers especially care about PhD students’ experience, making them feel welcome and helping them progress their research through well-thought-out activities. For instance, in the PhD workshops, they make a great effort to group students with similar topics together with professors who are experts in those areas.

Anecdote: Things we don’t know about you?

When I was 10, I won a contest on the Discovery Kids channel. The prize, from the TV show Outward Bound, was a trip to New York City and a week of adventures in Bermuda (swimming, bouldering, kayaking…). At the time, I was more excited about Bermuda, but over the years, my fascination with New York grew and sparked my obsession with cities. So, I guess I have New York (and Discovery Kids) to thank for my interest in cities.