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I’m a Post-Doctoral researcher in the Centre for Spatial Analysis and Policy at the School of Geography, University of Leeds. I have a PhD in Geography and undergraduate degrees in Computer Science (BSc) and Informatics (MSc). My primary research interest is in developing spatial computer models of social phenomena and my focus, in particular, has been on crime simulation.

An example of the simulated movements of two virtual burglars in my PhD model. (GeoTime® software used courtesy of Oculus Info Inc. All GeoTime rights reserved).

My PhD, entitled “Agent-Based Modelling of Crime” (available here) built a computer simulation that can be used to simulate the behaviour of virtual people in a realistic urban environment (a virtual space with houses, roads, communities, railways etc). I attempted to simulate a real urban regeneration project to determine what effects it could have on burglary rates. Although the PhD project has finished, I am continuing to develop the software with a Royal Geographical Society grant (see, for example, the RepastCity project).

I am also interested in other forms of spatial analysis (clustering methods, spatial statistics etc) and how new social data can influence research. We are currently exploring how geo-located Twitter data can be used to learn about social systems.

I am currently employed on the The UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC) project to generate household-level demographic projections over the next 80 years.The project will inform the analysis, planning and design of national infrastructure, through the development and demonstration of new decision support tools, and working with partners in government and industry.