People

Aditi is a PhD student in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, where she also received her Masters in City Planning in 2010. Her research interests include participatory planning, technology and civic engagement, community development, as well as issues around racial and ethnic diversity. Aditi’s research at CoLab focuses on a comparative analysis of community-based research methods across the Urban Research-Based Action Network (URBAN), (a platform that seeks to promote community-based research and engaged scholarship across the U.S.), providing CoLab and its partners with an early understanding of emerging patterns in the field.

Previously, she worked with the Community Innovators Lab as a NOLA Fellow from 2009 to 2010 and was partnered with Broad Community Connections (BCC), a non-profit dedicated to revitalizing Broad Street, a historic business corridor in New Orleans. Although assigned to complete a market study for a proposed grocery store, Aditi was drawn to the people of Broad, who are passionate about the health and future of their community. She worked with business owners, non-profits, and other locals to vision and produce Who's On Broad?, a digital storytelling project about Broad Street with an interactive web-based map and live exhibition, all of which is featured on CoLab Radio. (Meanwhile, her grocery store market study helped result in a $15,000 grant for BCC to improve fresh food access on Broad Street through the J.P. Morgan Chase Community Development Competition.)