Dr Valentina Montoya Robledo

Valentina's current work is organised around three key themes: gender and mobilities of care; mobility and the Right to the City; and gender, race, violence and the city.

Valentina was appointed in 2023, having previously worked as an Assistant professor of Law at Universidad de los Andes (2021-2023), and consultant for the Transport Gender Lab at the Interamerican Development Bank (2019-2021). Her work draws on a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and currently focuses on Latin America and Africa. Valentina's doctoral research at Harvard University (2020) focused on domestic workers’ commuting experiences in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia. Valentina’s work to date has been funded by the Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship by the World Resources Institute, the John F Meyer Transportation fund from Harvard Kennedy School, and the Harvard-Los Andes fund. 

Gender and mobilities of care. Work on this theme has focused on different aspects of domestic workers’ commuting experiences in Latin American cities considering the legal rule in place. Recently, this has involved examining the impact of very low-quality commutes on domestic workers’ family dependents. From 2024, a new research project, will examine these experiences in the legal context of select African cities. 

Mobility and the Right to the City. Under this theme, Valentina has examined how the Right to the City effectively operates through the lenses of urban mobility. Recently, this has involved analysing the cartographic gap between transportation experts and domestic workers. 

Gender, race, violence and the city. This strand of work draws on gender and mobility literature, and transport racism to understand the pervasive gendered and racial violence against LGBTQI+ people, and Afro-Latin American populations while moving around the cities. Recent work under this theme has focused, on the one hand, on gender-based violence LGBTQI+ persons experience in Manizales, Colombia; and racism that domestic workers experience in Latin American public space and transport.

Valentina strives to build lasting collaborations with organisations beyond academia. In recent years she has worked closely as a lawyer and activist with the Colombian Domestic Workers’ Union- UTRASD. 

She currently directs the transmedia project Invisible Commutes, and launched her first film Invisible (2023) on domestic workers commutes in Latin America.

Valentina has also worked in policymaking and consultancy with the United Nations Environment Program, the Colombian Ministry of Transport, the European Investment Bank and the Interamerican Development Bank. 

• Montoya-Robledo V. (2023) "That is why users do not understand the maps we make for them": Cartographic gaps between experts and domestic workers and the Right to the City." Data and Policy. [Preprint]
• Marin, A.; Hidalgo, D.; Zamora, E.; Café, E.; Montes, L.; Cortés, R.; Montoya-Robledo, V.; Bernal, V.; Pinto-Ayala, A.; Diaz, C.; Santos, C.; Persaud, C.; Puppo, C.; Alonso, F.; Paredes, H.; Porcel, M.; León, M.; Sosa, M.; Chiavassa, N.; and Gallego, R. (2023). Road safety in Latin America and the Caribbean: after a decade of action prospects for safer mobility. Interamerican Development Bank. 10.18235/0004843.
• Montoya-Robledo, Valentina Iguavita, Laura & López, Segundo. (2022). Breathing in and out: Domestic workers high exposure to air pollution in Bogota's public transportation system. Environment and Planning C Politics and Space. 1-19. 10.1177/23996544221077810. 
• Montoya-Robledo, V.; Montes, L.; Carvajal, V.; Galarza DC.; Pipicano, W.; Peña, A.; Pipicano, C.; Lopez, JS.; Fernández, M.; Porras, I.; Arias, N.; and Miranda, L. (2020). Gender stereotypes affecting active mobility of care in Bogotá. Transportation Research Part D.
• Montoya-Robledo, V and Escovar-Álvarez, G. (2020). Domestic workers’ commutes in Bogotá: Transportation, gender and social exclusion. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 139. 400-411. 10.1016/j.tra.2020.07.019. 

See Google Scholar for full overview of publications