Franco Calderón is a professor, researcher, and project manager in the School of Architecture at the Universidad del Valle in Colombia. With a background in Architecture, she studied urban design at the University of Marseille in France and worked in Marseille with a team on a waterfront renewal project for an area of more than 650 acres designed to reconnect the city with the Mediterranean Sea. Having studied Sociology for her master’s degree, she uses a sociological approach in her research to analyze the impacts of urban projects in local communities. At MIT, she hopes to broaden her understanding of community initiative project management and leadership.