AGI student of the year

We are delighted to announce that CASA’s Sharon Richardson has won the award for AGI Student of the year.

This prestigious award recognises the best postgraduate dissertation project from geospatial disciplines for 2014-2015. 

Sharon’s thesis took a unique dataset - a fine-grained location sensor “OpenSignal” a mobile app used by 1.5 million - and investigated its potential at understanding human dynamics.  

Her results were intriguing: At the borough level, Sharon found little evidence of demographic bias, but some correlation with crime statistics and transport accessibility – suggesting that the dataset is indeed highlighting areas of higher daytime populations. At the street level, Sharon demonstrated how the data could allow landmarks and pedestrian routes to become visible and to characterise the usage of different urban spaces throughout the day.

These insights have a range of applications: understanding footfall can help with interpreting pedestrian route choices and crowd behaviour and assist in urban design and crime prevention.

Sharon’s thesis was exceptional. It was well written, original and likely to be of interest to a number of academic audiences. We are thrilled she has received the full credit she deserves for her outstanding work.