Fran Meissner

Social scientist of urban datafication and diversity

Fran Meissner’s main research interest is focused on contemporary urban social configurations and how these are transformed through datafication and urban technologies. Her research focus builds on complexity and network analytic approaches and a research passion for making sense of urban diversities – those brought about by international migration and by data technology driven stratifications as well as their interplay. She is an Assistant Professor in Critical Geodata Studies and Geodata Ethics at the University of Twente. Before starting at Twente Fran was an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Leiden. She has previously held a highly competetive Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowship at the TU Delft. Fran is a long term research partner at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, where she completed her PhD work as a Doctoral Research Fellow.

Fran has previously been a Junior Research Group Leader at the University of Kassel and a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the Migration and Diaspora Studies Centre. She started her post-doctoral career as a Max Weber Fellow at the prestigious European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Fran has published multiple books, book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. Her work is driven by the desire to have a positive impact – by way of her research and teaching she aims to foster a more reflexive geoscience and in her service work she aims to make University work more equitable and less toxic. 

Fields of expertise:
Migration and urban diversification, Critical Data Studies, Geodata Ethics, Urban Futures, Data Visualisations