Intern Spotlight: Sandro Hall

Sandro Hall is a rising junior majoring in Urban Studies with minors in Architectural Design and Film Studies. He began working at CESTA Winter 2018, first working on the Urban Legacy of Ancient Rome project, where he digitized and georeferenced historical maps. However, as he learned more about city structures and their inherent social influence, Sandro grew an interest in researching this phenomena through a more contemporary lense.

Luckily, CESTA houses a variety of projects that allow continuing interns to explore multiple research paths. Sandro now works on Global Urbanization and Its Discontents––a project that traces a century of development and displacement across the globe. Led by Zephyr Frank, Sandro collaborates with RIs Em Wilder and Lucas Sato to generate new data about processes of global urbanization.

This summer, Sandro is focusing on mapping in Tableau and writing research reports based on historical data from 30 cities from around the globe; he notes, “the more you look at history, the more clearly you can see how it’s a cyclical process… all of it: city formation, growth, and the methods in which people are displaced.” Sandro believes that this research is pivotal––and that if people were privy to how this process can confine them, they’d be better equipped to fight back against oppressive urbanization.

Sandro is excited for the next step of this project, which consists of creating a website where anyone can access the data his research team has uncovered.