Maria Carmen (Ica) Fernandez is a spatial planner working on the intersections of space, place, culture, sustainability, good governance, and armed conflict.
She has spent the last decade specialising in the implementation and evaluation of peace agreements and other issues related to violence, vulnerability, and social cohesion in the Philippines. As a former worker in the Philippine ministry overseeing peace negotiations, Ica consults with governments, communities, and international development organisations.
She has designed and implemented projects related to open governance and open data for decision-making in transitional contexts, and advocates for interdisciplinary action research for participatory engagement. Ica is a research fellow of Young Public Servants and is a founding convenor of UrbanisMO.ph, an informal collective of urban practitioners working on difficult questions in the Philippines.
Ica holds an MA in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of the Philippines and an MPhil in Planning, Growth and Regeneration from the University of Cambridge. She is slated to begin PhD research at the University of Cambridge under a Newton Scholarship in 2020.
