Our Team
Future Leaders Fellow
Dr Anne Templeton
University of Edinburgh
Dr Anne Templeton is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, the PI of the project, and leads the Identities and Collective Behaviour research group. Her research primarily focuses on using the social identity approach to improve crowd safety in emergencies and at mass events. Anne does this through exploring the role of social identities in communication between crowd members and safety personnel, and incorporating the role of social identities into pedestrian models of collective behaviour. Anne has either conducted research or advised on crowd safety for the UK Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, UK Sport, the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, the UK Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Local Communities, the Hajj, PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games, Rail Safety and Standards Boards, Local Authority Building Control, and the UK Home Office and UK Ministry of Defence.
Industry Lead Researcher
Professor Steve Gwynne
Movement Strategies (GHD)
Professor Steve Gwynne is Research Lead at Movement Strategies (a GHD company) and Industrial Professor of Evacuation and Pedestrian Dynamics at Lund University, Sweden. Steve has nearly 25 years of experience in pedestrian dynamics, human behaviour in fire and evacuation modelling. Steve has worked for the Canadian /US governments, academic institutes (e.g. Univ. Maryland, Univ. Waterloo and Univ. Greenwich) and in consultancy (e.g. Hughes Associates, US). Steve has been involved in data collection, model development/application, procedural design, and regulatory development. Steve has worked in the aviation, maritime, rail and built environments, and has also worked in large-scale disasters (e.g. wildfire incidents).
Industry Lead Researcher
Dr Aoife Hunt
Movement Strategies (GHD)
Aoife is a leading specialist in crowd flow analysis. She has 11 years’ experience in simulating pedestrian dynamics and completed an award-winning PhD in evacuation modelling. She has led numerous high-profile projects and delivered innovative technical solutions to analyse the movements of people and materials in buildings, stadia and events, the public realm and transport systems across the world. Aoife leads on high profile projects across the globe, advising on all aspects of people movement and behaviour. She has delivered more than 40 projects in pedestrian planning, contributing to station capacity assessments, design reviews, parade and concert planning, vertical circulation assessments, static and dynamic crowd modelling, flow and density analysis, and alternative use assessments. Aoife is regularly consulted on national guidance documents. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland
Researcher
Dr Hui Xie
Movement Strategies (GHD)
Dr. Hui Xie is an advisor at Movement Strategies (a GHD company). He has recently worked on several research and consulting projects, ranging from building fire safety, large-scale disasters (wildfires) to human behaviour at major events. Before he joined the GHD Advisory Consulting team in 2021, he worked as a researcher at the Fire Safety Engineering Group of the University of Greenwich. He has 10 years of experience in evacuation modelling and human behaviour study. He has worked on a variety of large-scale research projects and industrial projects. His activities include designing and conducting experimental trials, data collection and analysis, and modelling to better understand human behaviour in evacuation in built environment. His PhD addressed wayfinding behaviour in an emergency situation and the design of smart signage systems. He has over 15 peer-reviewed publications.
Co-Investigator
Dr Gareth Clegg
University of Edinburgh
Dr Gareth Clegg is a Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Emergency Medicine at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, Associate Medical Director (Emergency and Critical Care) at the Scottish Ambulance Service, and Honorary Consultant in Emergency Medicine. He is a Lead for the Resuscitation Research Group at the University of Edinburgh and co-founder of the Emergency Medicine Research Group. Gareth’s research group collaborate widely to tackle the system constraints determining the success of prehospital resuscitation and he uses multiple methods to do this such as video analysis of team performance. Gareth also serves as the chair for the Scottish Ambulance Service Research and Development Committee and their Clinical Advisory Group. He is currently working with the Scottish Government as a subject specialist helping to devise the national strategy for Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest management.
Co-Investigator
Dr Fergus Neville
The University of St Andrews
Dr Fergus Neville’s research is focused on group processes and their pro-social and anti-social consequences. I am particularly interested in social identities, including within organisational contexts. My research covers a range of phenomena which are central to understandings of organisations and their management, including leadership and influence, normative processes, social support and toxic behaviour in groups. Much of my research has been conducted within crowds as I believe they represent a uniquely rich site in which to study processes of organisation, leadership and conflict. The core motivation running through my work is to produce outward-facing research which develops both theory and practical guidance for policy and impact.
External Collaborator
Dr Holly Carter
Public Health England
Dr Holly Carter is a Principal Behavioural Scientist in the Behavioural Science and Insights Unit at the UK Health Security Agency. She completed a PhD in crowd behaviour during CBRN incidents and is interested in understanding the psychosocial aspects of mass emergencies and disasters. Her research explores various aspects of emergency preparedness and response, including the impact of pre-incident information on public preparedness, factors which affect the way in which members of the public respond to recommendations and interventions implemented by the authorities, and ways to improve interoperable working among emergency responders. Holly works closely with policy makers and emergency planners to inform policy and practice for the management of major incidents, particularly those involving CBRN agents. Her work has informed the development of training modules for the Fire and Rescue Service and other emergency response organisations, and she provides advice to a number of central Government working groups.
External Collaborator
Professor Dr Gerta Köster
Munich University of Applied Sciences
‘Prof. Dr. Gerta Köster is a Professor of modelling and simulation at the Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, Hochschule München – University of Applied Sciences. Previously she was a researcher at the Department of Mathematics, LMU München and Research and Teaching assistant at the Department of Mathematics at The Ohio State University, USA. She gained expertise in applying science and managing innovation during 13 years in industry. Her current research focus is on modelling and simulation of pedestrian dynamics, including psychological phenomena, and in harnessing explainable AI methods to harvest and analyse massive data output from simulations and observations. Professor Köster is a Project Collaborator on the fellowship and provides vital input into the development of the computer model through her expertise in modelling group processes in Vadere'
External Collaborator
Dr Natalie Van Der Wal
University of Delft
Dr. Natalie Van der Wal is an Associate Professor in System Engineering and Simulation at Delft University of Technology. Previously she worked as a Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow at Leeds University Business School and as an Assistant Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Dr. van der Wal is an expert in agent-based modelling and simulation and cognitive and social psychology. She aims to improve evacuations with her interdisciplinary research, to ultimately save lives. Dr. Van der Wal has co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications in the areas of agent-based modelling, evacuation science, resilience research, health and well-being. She has won the best paper award at the International Conference of Computational Collective Intelligence 2017 for her evacuation model including socio-cultural factors, an EU H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship in 2018 for evacuation research, and was Work Package Leader of EU H2020 project IMPACT from 2015-2018.
Project Administrator
Anezka Beamish Leskovcova
University of Edinburgh
Anezka Beamish Leskovcova has over 11 years of experience in various administration roles at the University of Edinburgh. Most recently she was a Business Administrator for the User Services Division of University of Edinburgh, managing the divisional budget and HR matters. Prior to this role, she was an office manager and PA to the Director of Finance of the University of Edinburgh. She has a financial and accountancy background, and a degree in Classical Studies.