Research Interests

Research Themes

1) Retailing, Retail Spaces and Consumer Behaviour

Key themes I am exploring:

  • How can we characterise the geographies of retail centre agglomerations, particularly in terms of where they are located, what characteristics they have, and who uses them?
  • How is the composition and economic performance of retail centres and high streets changing?
  • In what ways is consumer behaviour changing, how can we measure this, and what are the social, economic and environmental consequences of these shifts?

2) Transport Geography, Infrastructure Planning and 15-Minute Cities

Key themes I am exploring:

  • Development of small area measures of (sustainable) transport inequality, bringing together elements of supply & demand, to explore where better investment might lead to increased mode shift away from private cars.
  • How can we design empirical evidence to steer decision making around new sustainable transport infrastructure, and new pedestrian infrastructure.
  • In what ways is the “15-Minute City” concept a useful framwork to reduce transport (and retail) inequalities across cities?

3) Spatial Inequality, Place-Based Policy and Digital Planning

Key themes I am exploring:

  • Integrating concepts and measurement of spatial inequality into evidence about place-based inequalities.
  • Working collaboratively with cities and regions to design bespoke digital planning tools (e.g., urban indicators, Digital Twins) that support decision making around large scale investment decisions.
  • Exploring new techniques for stakeholder engagement with insights from spatial data (e.g., narrative story maps)

Research Approach and Methodologies

I primarily work in R, though for specialised applications such as network analysis or dashboard development I will use other programming languages (e.g., Python) or softwares (e.g., ArcGIS). Below I have listed my main methodological specialisms:

  • Spatial Analysis
  • Spatial Modelling
  • Supervised and Unsupervised Machine Learning
  • Statistics
  • Area Classifications and Geodemographics
  • Scoring and Indicator Development
  • Network Analysis
  • Data Visualisation and Cartography
  • Dashboards
  • Digital Twins