R.M. (Rolando) Gonzales Martinez, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences. The Horizon Europe initiative is in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission places special emphasis on children, recognising their pivotal role in achieving these goals, as they constitute one of the most vulnerable and marginalised groups globally. Relying solely on survey data to calculate child indicators has its limitations, as surveys may require periodic updates or may cover only specific regions within a country. The MSCA-funded SMALACI project employs satellite imagery and machine learning techniques to identify vulnerable children in countries with outdated or incomplete survey information. The overall aim is to develop tools for monitoring progress towards achieving the SDGs, crafting targeted interventions, and reducing the costs associated with poverty reduction programmes.

Education:

• MSc in Applied Statistics from the University of Alcala (Spain),

• PhD from the Universitetet i Agder (Norway). PhD dissertation framed on the anarchist theory of knowledge of Feyerabend and the differences between theory-driven and data-driven science, with applications to nanofinance groups in Africa.

• Evaluation of Social Programs (J-PAL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Deep learning (Arctic University of Norway). Multidimensional poverty (Oxford University). Macro-prudential Policies (International Monetary Fund, IMF). Bayesian modeling, inference and prediction (University of Reading, UK) .
  

Previous professional experience:

• Postdoctoral researcher at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Arts.
• Postdoctoral data scientist at CASUS (HelmholtzZentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany).
• Postdoctoral consultant for the Centre for Demographic Studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), AjoCard (digital finance in Africa) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI, Oxford University).