Spatially-explicit simulation modelling of complex, ecological systems:
* the added value of spatially-explicit modelling
* Hybrid agent-based and system-dynamics modelling in ecology
* Agent-based models, Cellular Automata

I am a geographer interested in exploring tourism system dynamics and assessing tourism’s role in environmental sustainability using agent-based modelling (ABM). My current work focus is on human complex systems interactions with the environment and on the application of tools (such as scenario analysis, network analysis and ABM) to explore topics systems adaptation, vulnerability and resilience to global change. I am also interested in looking into my PhD future research directions which pointed the potential of Big Data, social media and Volunteer Geographical Information to increase destination awareness.
I have extensive experience in GIS, quantitative and qualitative methods of research. My master thesis assessed the potential for automatic feature extraction from QuickBird imagery for municipal management purposes. During my PhD I have published and submitted several scientific papers in ISI indexed journals. I have a good research network in Portugal and I integrate an international research network on the topic “ABM meets tourism”. I am a collaborator in a recently awarded USA NCRCRD grant project “Using Agent Based Modelling to Understand and Enhance Rural Tourism Industry Collaboration” and applied for NSF funding with the project “Understanding and Enhancing the Resilience of Recreation and Tourism Dependent Communities in the Gulf”.

Becky is a Research Associate at the Imperial Centre for Energy Policy and Technology (ICEPT). She investigates economic, social and technical aspects of energy policy in the UK and abroad.

Becky’s current research is focussed on transitions in the UK bioenergy system and on biofuels for aviation. She is involved with two major projects: Bioenergy Value Chains: Whole Systems Analysis and Optimisation, an EPSRC SUPERGEN Bioenergy Challenge Project; and Renewable Jet Fuel Supply Chain Development and Flight Operations (RENJET), a project for EIT Climate-KIC. Becky has also worked on projects for the UK Energy Research Centre – International Renewable Energy Agency (UKERC-IRENA) collaboration, investigating issues such as economic value creation, policy evaluation metrics, innovation theory and rural electrification. She is particularly interested in the role of renewable technologies for developing countries, having lived and worked in Mali and Senegal.

Ms. Stringfellow is a PhD candidate whose goal is to identify ways to build and leverage the natural support systems of people who are experiencing problems related to their illicit drug use. Her current interest is in how these support systems operate in small towns with limited formal resources for quitting. To that end, she recently began conducting in-depth qualitative interviews for her dissertation in a semi-rural county in eastern Missouri. These interviews will be used to build an agent-based model, a type of dynamic simulation modeling that can be used to represent heterogeneous actors with multiple goals and perceptions. As a research assistant and dissertation fellow with the Social System Design Lab, she has also been trained in system dynamics, an aggregate-level dynamic simulation modeling method.

Prior to joining the PhD program, she worked as a research associate at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program from 2008-2012. BHCHP is an exemplar model of providing patient-centered care for people who have experienced homelessness. There, she gained significant experience in managing research projects, collecting qualitative and quantitative data, and program evaluation. She earned her MSW from the University of Michigan in 2007, with a focus on policy and evaluation in community and social systems, and a BA in sociology in 2005, also at the University of Michigan. Ms. Stringfellow was born and raised in a small town in Michigan.

As publically funded science has become increasingly complex, the policy and management literature has begun to focus more attention on how science is structured and organized. My research interests reside at the nexus of science and technology policy, organizational theory, and complexity theory—I am interested in how the management and organization of S&T research influences the implementation of policies and the emergence of organizational strategies and innovation. Although my research involves the use of multiple qualitative and quantitative methods, I rely heavily on agent based modeling and system dynamics approaches in addressing my research questions.

• Modeling human-plant interactions in the origin of agriculture: Multiparadigmatic modeling and simulation (ABM, System Dynamics) of the interaction between humans and plants during domestication.
• Modeling cooperation in small-scale food economies: Agent-based modeling and simulation of the mechanisms involved in the emergence and disruption of cooperative behavior and institutions.
• Models of resource metabolism: study of matter, information and energy flows in systems with living agents at all scales.
• Modeling prehistoric hunting: modeling hunting at the scale of individuals to understand the immediate constraints of hunting as an ecological, economical and social activity.
• Modeling the interaction between herding and farming in arid environments: Agent-based modeling and simulation of the mechanisms involved in the formation and change of agro-pastoral land use patterns (sedentary farming and mobile herding) in the arid Afro-Eurasia.
• Models for games, games for models: Explore the intersection between modeling in Archaeology and game design, aiming to improve our understanding of the long-term implications of human behavior.

Agent Based Modeling (ABM), Agent Based Social System (ABSS), Multi-Agent Systems (MAS), Bayesian learning, Social networks Analysis (SNA), Socio ecological Dynamics.

My research interests include policy informatics and decision making, modeling in policy analysis and management decisions, public health management and policy, and the role of public value in policy development. I am particularly interested in less mainstream approaches to modeling that account for learning, feedback, and other systems dynamics. I include Bayesian inference, agent-based models, and behavioral assumptions in both my research and teaching.
In my dissertation research, I conceptualize state Medicaid programs as complex adaptive systems characterized by diverse actors, behaviors, relationships, and objectives. These systems reproduce themselves through both strategic and emergent mechanisms of program management. I focus on the mechanism by which citizens are sorted into or out of the system: program enrollment. Using Bayesian regression and agent-based models, I explore the role of administrative practices (such as presumptive eligibility and longer continuous eligibility periods) in increasing enrollment of eligible citizens into Medicaid programs.

My main interests are system dynamics and multi agent simulation used for support of business and marketing decisions (e.g. modeling of consumer markets) and in business education (e.g. development of open source business simulators). Amongst my other interests are applied marketing research, relationships between academia and industry, financial literacy, mind and concept mapping.

For my Ph.D. thesis, I developed a system to play poker.
I’m interested to see whether a similar approach can be applied to agent based models.