Yael Borofsky joins SPUR as a postdoctoral researcher
Yael is a new postdoctoral researcher supported by a grant from the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) to study whether policymakers respond to technology pilots projects in informal settlements.
As a postdoc at SPUR, Yael will collaborate with researchers from the department of Industrial Engineering at Stellenbosch University to investigate infrastructure technology pilot projects in urban informal settlements and explore whether and how they translate into policy. The two-year project is funded by the external page Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) and will also engage a transdisciplinary steering committee made up of representatives of international organizations and NGOs to help guide the research.
The study will provide insights into the effectiveness of pilot projects in eliciting policy change to address infrastructure inequalities in informal neighborhoods. It will also contribute to a growing body of theory focused on modifying the transitions literature to account for new contexts.
Yael comes to SPUR from the Collegium Helveticum, where she was an Early-Career fellow. She completed her PhD at the Institute for Science, Technology, and Policy and in the Development Economics Group at ETH Zurich where she studied access to public lighting in informal settlements in Cape Town, South Africa. She has a master’s in City Planning and in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
