Torrens Awarded NSF Grant to Study How Shifts in Human Behavior Can Impact Communications, Transportation and More

Paul Torrens, an associate professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences with an appointment in UMIACS, was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant totaling approximately $200,000 to study how shifts in human behavior can impact communications, commuting patterns and more.

Torrens, who is the principal investigator on the grant, gives the example that delayed starts to the workday because of winter weather can bump peak commuting off-rhythm, delay the logistics of citywide delivery systems, or produce bursts in communications activity.

While these may form as small local shifts from normal in particular places and times, they can transfer, diffuse, and adapt with unforeseen consequences and have serious impacts on broader phenomena as diverse as commuting, the labor market, logistics, and urban management. Understanding how these dynamics arise, form, and spread through increasingly connected systems, as well as measuring and modeling them, is critical in order to plan for them, mitigate, and then find a way to manage them.

Torrens is working with Vanessa Frias-Martinez, an assistant professor in the College of Information Studies (iSchool), on the project.

Read more here.