Nikki Ritsch – Pittsburgh

Nikki Ritsch (she/her) is passionate about understanding the role that physical and political infrastructure play in supporting or deterring equitable access to opportunities. She is currently in the second year of her Ph.D. program in the Engineering and Public Policy Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Nikki graduated as the Outstanding Graduate of the College of Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2018, with her Master’s in Civil Systems Engineering with a certificate in Engineering for Developing Communities and her Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering with an emphasis in water systems and a minor in leadership. Nikki has worked for the World Bank on rural road rehabilitation projects in Chad, water system management in Sudan, establishing a sustainable ports partnership along the Western Coast of Africa, and a global decarbonization of shipping effort. Nikki currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and their pup. Her current research work focuses specifically on how broadband access during the COVID-19 pandemic impacts employment, wages, and equity, both in the context of the US and Rwanda. Her larger research centers on understanding how infrastructure can be used as a “sensor” to both understand social systems and inequities within those systems and quickly craft crisis response therein with such information. She is ultimately interested in applying her observations and research about the relationship between infrastructure and social equity through effective, data-based policies and decision support.