Anni Beukes is an urban researcher working at the nexus of poverty, populations, and politics. In her research and practice, Beukes draws across disciplinary methods in the social, spatial, and data sciences to generate new data and design knowledge-making processes with young people in urban informal settlements, with the aim of supporting sustainable and equitable planning and upgrading in their neighborhoods. She is a former Fellow of the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation at the University of Chicago, where she studied how the processes and technologies of knowledge making, especially the creation and use of digital mapping tools, affect communities and populations living in marginalized neighborhoods internationally. Prior to that, Beukes spent four years with Slum Dwellers International (SDI), where she was responsible for SDI’s data ecosystem, from community managed data collection to data platform management, analysis, and partnerships. She led SDI’s efforts at the intersection of organized community groups, researchers, technologists, and software developers to create and refine tools, methods and practices for community-driven knowledge production. Beukes holds degrees (MA, BA Hons, BA) in social anthropology from University Stellenbosch in South Africa.