Andrew Crooks

Andrew Crooks is a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo's College of Arts and Sciences. He holds a PhD from University College London (2007) and specializes in Geographical Information Science, Geocomputation, Agent-based Modeling, Social Network Analysis, Urban Geography, and Computational Social Science. His research integrates advanced computational methods with urban and environmental challenges, focusing on topics like disaster resilience, pandemic modeling, and synthetic population dynamics.

Key research contributions include frameworks for urban digital twins, synthetic population modeling, and agent-based simulations of human behavior and disease spread. He teaches courses such as GEO 281 (Web-Based GIS), GEO 120 (Maps: Earth from Above), and GEO 503 (Spatial Simulation). His work bridges geospatial technologies with social sciences, addressing issues like climate adaptation, urban shrinkage, and vaccine uptake dynamics through innovative data-driven approaches.

Crooks' recent articles highlight trends in generative AI for urban modeling, crowdsourced environmental monitoring, and hybrid space information diffusion. His methodologies emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration, leveraging social media, citizen science, and large-scale computational tools to solve complex geographical problems. He has contributed to disaster response strategies, urban policy design, and pandemic preparedness through actionable insights derived from spatial and agent-based models.