Roland Geraerts

Roland Geraerts is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University, specializing in geometric computing and crowd simulation. His research focuses on motion planning, navigation meshes, and high-performance computing for virtual environments. He co-founded the annual Motion in Games conference and the startup uCrowds, which develops crowd simulation software (SimCrowds) used in urban planning and emergency management.

Education: He teaches a master's course on crowd simulation and serves as program director for the Computer Science bachelor's program. His PhD research (2006) centered on sampling-based motion planning and path quality optimization.

Research Interests: His work spans crowd behavior modeling, augmented reality interfaces, and real-time simulation engines. Notable projects include the CrowdAR Table for interactive crowd visualization and collaboration with Schiphol Airport and Rotterdam on evacuation simulations.

Articles Trends: His publications emphasize practical applications of algorithms in game development, emergency planning, and urban design. Recent work explores reinforcement learning for social distancing simulations and multi-layered environment navigation.

• Scientific Awards: Winner of the 2020 Academic Startup Competition (uCrowds).

Impact & Grants: Member of the Faculty of Science Impact Committee, contributing to long-term policy and vision for computer science applications. Collaborative projects include simulations for the Dutch parliamentary elections and the Tour de France Grand Départ.

Labs/Teams: Leads the Geometric Computing group at Utrecht University, developing the SimCrowds platform and AR interfaces for real-time crowd interaction.