Tomy Goulding is an architect and urban planner. She is beginning her PhD at LATTS under the supervision of Sylvy Jaglin and Claire Simonneau. Her thesis topic focuses on the rise of self-produced photovoltaic (PV) solar systems in cities in sub-Saharan Africa, which is leading to the hybridization of urban electrical configurations. Her work focuses on whether and how forms of governance for this hybridization are emerging, and examines the socio-technical representations and imaginaries that inspire them. In addition, the thesis questions how the rise of solar PV is shaped by urban socio-environmental inequalities and, in turn, impacts them.
She has chosen the Dakar region as her field of investigation, where she has already traveled several times as part of her Master's degree specializing in Cities of the South at the Paris School of Urban Planning, as well as for her thesis during her first two-month field mission in October 2023.