Dr Rafaella Simas Lima

Rafaella is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow exploring how investment firms direct financial flows and shape urban development across uneven geographies. Prior to this, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on a project investigating the scale and impact of low-use properties in rural and coastal areas of the UK.

Rafaella completed her PhD in Geography at the University of Sheffield in 2022. Her ESRC-funded project explored the role of transnational institutional investors in the production of housing in Lisbon. Rafaella also holds an MSc in Urban Development Planning from the Development Planning Unit, UCL, where she subsequently worked for two years as a teaching and research assistant, and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.