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I am a geographer interested in exploring tourism system dynamics and assessing tourism’s role in environmental sustainability using agent-based modelling (ABM). My current work focus is on human complex systems interactions with the environment and on the application of tools (such as scenario analysis, network analysis and ABM) to explore topics systems adaptation, vulnerability and resilience to global change. I am also interested in looking into my PhD future research directions which pointed the potential of Big Data, social media and Volunteer Geographical Information to increase destination awareness.
I have extensive experience in GIS, quantitative and qualitative methods of research. My master thesis assessed the potential for automatic feature extraction from QuickBird imagery for municipal management purposes. During my PhD I have published and submitted several scientific papers in ISI indexed journals. I have a good research network in Portugal and I integrate an international research network on the topic “ABM meets tourism”. I am a collaborator in a recently awarded USA NCRCRD grant project “Using Agent Based Modelling to Understand and Enhance Rural Tourism Industry Collaboration” and applied for NSF funding with the project “Understanding and Enhancing the Resilience of Recreation and Tourism Dependent Communities in the Gulf”.
The big picture question driving my research is how do complex systems of interactions among individuals / agents result in emergent properties and how do those emergent properties feedback to affect individual / agent decisions. I have explored this big picture question in a number of different contexts including the evolution of cooperation, suburban sprawl, traffic patterns, financial systems, land-use and land-change in urban systems, and most recently social media. For all of these explorations, I employ the tools of complex systems, most importantly agent-based modeling.
My current research focus is on understanding the dynamics of social media, examining how concepts like information, authority, influence and trust diffuse in these new media formats. This allows us to ask questions such as who do users trust to provide them with the information that they want? Which entities have the greatest influence on social media users? How do fads and fashions arise in social media? What happens when time is critical to the diffusion process such as an in a natural disaster? I have employed agent-based modeling, machine learning, geographic information systems, and network analysis to understand and start to answer these questions.
I’m a Research Associate in Computational Social Science at Durham University working on a project that intends to produce more realistic artificial social networks (RASN) for simulation by creating a taxonomy of existing generator papers, accessible as an interactive, open-access database, in addition to exploring the interdependencies of social network’s structural properties. I obtained my PhD from University of Glasgow in (2023) where I was working on modelling national identity polarisation on social media platforms using ABMs.
agent-based models, social networks, echo chambers, polarisation
Julia, R, NetLogo, Python
I am currently enrolled as a graduate student at UC3M, working towards a MS degree in Computational and Applied Mathematics. Upon completing my current program, my intention is to further my education in Applied Economics, with a specific focus on the intersection of Climate and Development Economics.
My research pursuits center around investigating the impacts of climate change on developing nations. Additionally, I am interested in studying the repercussions of fast fashion consumption, examining its effects on working conditions, the environment, and the overall well-being of individuals in the countries where these garments are manufactured. In my ongoing master’s thesis, I employ Agent-Based Modeling to simulate the attitudes of individual consumers towards fast fashion. The model captures behavioral shifts influenced by peers, social media, and governmental factors. This research aligns with my broader interests in comprehending public perspectives on global matters, underscoring the crucial influence of individual attitudes in confronting and finding solutions to these challenges.
Development Economics, Environmental Economics, Sustainability, Environment, Climate change, Climate justice, Energy, Clean Energy, Renewable Energy, Complex systems