Michelle Madiba

I am a geoinformatics postgraduate at the University of Pretoria and a research intern at the Human Sciences Research Council. My work sits at the intersection of Natural Language Processing, geoinformation sciences and social sciences with a focus of generating insights that support inclusive local governance and decision-making. This includes my honours project, which examines the spatial patterns of public concerns and attitudes by applying NLP methods and geospatial analysis to e-participation data to investigate how location-based insights of public concerns can inform our understanding of public needs for inclusive local governance. Outside my current work, my other interests include applications of GIS and remote sensing in urban planning, data ethics and artificial intelligence. In my personal time, I am a space and time-travel movie enthusiast, a baker (still perfecting my sourdough bread recipes), an occasional hiker and I love practicing yoga.