Inés Sánchez De Madariaga

Inés Sánchez de Madariaga is the UNESCO Chair on Gender, Professor of Urban Planning at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and Chair of the Advisory Group on Gender Issues to the Executive Director of UN-Habitat. She is a leading international expert on gender in transportation, urban planning, and architecture, with extensive experience spanning public office, policy, practice, and research.

A Fulbright grantee and Real Colegio Complutense Fellow, she has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, MIT, UCLA, the Bauhaus-Weimar, LSE, and Columbia University. She has held senior public office in the Spanish Government as Director of the Women and Science Unit, Director General for Architecture, advisor to the Ministers of Housing and of Science and Innovation, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Public Housing Corporation. Madariaga chaired the European Commission’s Expert Group on Gender Equality in Science, Technology, and Innovation and has worked on projects for the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, several UN agencies, and numerous local and regional governments in Spain.

A renowned public speaker, she has been invited to present at professional and policy forums in over 55 countries across five continents. She is the author of more than 100 articles and book chapters, as well as several books, including Engendering Cities (Routledge, 2020) and Fair Shared Cities (2013). In 2021, she received the Matilde Ucelay Award, granted by the Spanish Government, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to promoting gender equality in transportation and urban planning.