色色研究所

Dr. Rebecca C. (Becky) Vandewalle is a computational geographer and social science researcher who studies crisis-informatics, modeling and simulation, geospatial data science, and high-performance computing. She investigates complex problems with a particular focus on exploring human activities across multiple spatial and temporal scales. An early background in classical archaeology and training in archaeological excavation introduced her to the use of modeling and simulation to explore human interactions and behaviors, especially in sparse data contexts. Through research at the intersection of high-performance geospatial computing, geographic information science, spatial networks, and agent-based modeling, Dr. Vandewalle adapts a simulation approach to better understand human-environment interactions. 

Dr. Vandewalle's current research focuses on data science and decision support in complex socio-technical contexts and adapting large-scale geospatial simulation for high-performance computing resources. Research topics include simulating information seeking and information sharing for decision-making and gaining situational awareness during emergency evacuations, analyzing emergency management observations and communication patterns in crisis contexts, and investigating the impacts of autonomous vehicles in extraordinary and hazardous situations.

Dr. Vandewalle is also interested in furthering accessible, computationally reproducible, and scalable geospatial data analytics. Dr. Vandewalle has experience in building custom geospatial software tools and visualizations, and supporting education and training for data science, spatial computing, and agent-based modeling.