Rachel Franklin
Senior Lecturer

301-405-1914
rsfrankl@umd.edu

Rachel Franklin is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. Prior to taking on her current position she was Deputy Director of the Association of American Geographers and a Demographer in the Population Division of the U.S. Census Bureau. While at the Census Bureau, Franklin was one of a team of three researchers responsible for the analysis of migration data coming out of Census 2000. This research generated a number of Bureau publications and data products. One of Franklin's most recent publications, in the International Regional Science Review , assesses the challenges migration researchers (particularly those interested in the spatial aspects of migration and migration data) are likely to face as the Census Bureau shifts much of its data-gathering from the decennial census to the American Community Survey.

Franklin's research, generally of a quantitative regional science nature, focuses on spatial elements of migration and fertility in both the United States and Western Europe. As a population geographer, Franklin is primarily interested in explanations of fertility and mobility variations across space, with a particular emphasis on empirical applications. Methodologies used in her research typically include spatial regression modeling, mapping, and GIS. One paper, for example, published through the U.S. Census Bureau, highlighted states and metropolitan areas suffering from net-outmigration of the general population, but seen as magnets for young, college educated individuals. An invited paper in the International Regional Science Review (2006) discussed the potential problems regional scientists (and quantitative population geographers) can expect to face with respect to detailed migration data as the decennial long form questionnaire is phased out. Another recently completed paper, with Michael Tiefelsdorf, addresses the development of the spatial weights matrix used in many spatial regression models, with an application to provincial fertility levels in Italy.

Franklin holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Arizona, an MA in West European Studies from Indiana University and a BA in French and Political Science, also from Indiana University.