Juanita is an Urban Living Lab Developer at the AMS institute. In this role, she leads urban innovation initiatives that support the establishment of effective collaborative governance structures and the development, testing, and replication of sustainable solutions in real-life environments.
She leads AMS Institute’s contributions to the EU-funded projects ATELIER and EU4ADVICE. In ATELIER, she is responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of the Innovation Ateliers in Amsterdam, Bilbao, and six Fellow Cities, supporting the development of effective governance structures and stakeholder engagement strategies to accelerate the energy transition in Amsterdam and across European cities. In EU4ADVICE, she supports the four Living Labs focused on short food supply chains facilitating their establishment, governance, and integration into regional ecosystems. As a domain expert, she develops and validates Urban Living Lab tools and contributes to the MADE Living Lab course by teaching and guiding students in applying LL methods in practice. She also mentors early-stage startups, helping them scope and validate their solutions.
From 2022 to 2024, Juanita coordinated the Marineterrein Living Lab (MALL), where she supported experimenters through onboarding, scoping, implementation, and validation to mature solutions supporting stakeholder agendas and challenges. She also contributed to the Open Knowledge Coalition, enabling collaborations and initiatives between Codam, AHK, and AMS Institute.
With a background in urban planning and architecture, she brings expertise in participatory methods, EU project coordination, innovation ecosystems, and applied research focused on enabling urban innovation at the city and ecosystem level. Her experience spans across multiple urban domains including energy, food systems, mobility, inclusion, digital twins, and urban data.
She previously worked as an Urban Design Researcher at imec, contributing to H2020 projects (INDIMO, URBANAGE, TOKEN) on themes such as mobility (CityFlows), digital twins, and inclusion. Until 2018 she was a CityScience Advisor at the MIT Media Lab City Science Group, where she supported the establishment of the Andorra Living Lab, coordinating projects on urban simulation, innovation spaces, education, and cultural heritage.
While not working, you can find her travelling, sketching, or scuba diving.
You can find her publications here: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3206-0457
