Andrew Crooks, Department of Computational Social Science (CSS) within the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University

GIS and Agent-Based Modeling
Understanding and modeling human behavior is not as simple as it sounds. This is because humans do not just make random decisions, but base actions upon their knowledge and abilities. Moreover, one might think that human behavior is rational, but this is not always the case: decisions can also be based on emotions (e.g. happiness, anger, fear). Emotions can influence decision-making by altering our perceptions about the environment and future evaluations. The question therefore is how we model human behavior? Over the last decade, one of the dominant ways of modeling human behavior in its many shapes and forms has been through agent-based modeling (ABM). In this workshop I will provide a general overview of what agents are, why there is a need for agent-based models for studying cities, and how it links to how we believe societies operate through ideas of complexity theory. I will sketch out how geographical information systems (GIS) can be used to create spatially explicit agent-based models, before reviewing a range of applications where agent-based models have been developed using geographical data. The workshop concludes with an overview of challenges modelers face when using agent-based models to study geographical problems with a special emphasis on cities, and identify future avenues of research relating to big data and social network analysis.

Bio
Andrew Crooks is an assistant professor in the Department of Computational Social Science (CSS) within the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University. Andrew’s research interests relate to exploring, understanding and the communication of the physical and socio-economic environments using Geographical Information Systems (GIS), spatial analysis, agent-based modeling and social network analysis (SNA) methodologies. These research interests have resulted over 60 peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters, reports and conference proceedings. At Mason Andrew teaches a variety of courses related to his research such as: “The Introduction to CSS”; “Spatial Agent-based Models of Human-Environment Interactions”; and “GIS and ABM”. Prior to arriving at Mason, Andrew studied at the University of Edinburgh obtaining a BSc (hons) in Geology and Physical Geography and an MSc in Geographical Information Science. After this Andrew moved south to study at University College London (UCL) were he received a PhD in Geography. After completing his PhD and before joining Mason, Andrew held the position of 'Greater London Authority (GLA) Economics Research Fellow in Urban Systems' at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA). More information about Andrew can be found on his website: www.gisagents.org