Hydrodynamic Modelling of Active Matter

Are you eager to push the frontiers of fluid dynamics and AI to tackle real-world challenges in crowd safety, urban planning, and event management? Join our EPSRC-funded project FLOCKS (Fluid dynamics-Like Open-source Crowd Knowledge-driven Simulator) as a PhD student and help shape the future of crowd modelling.

FLOCKS aims to develop the world's first real-time, open-source simulator of large, dense crowd dynamics for both academic and industrial applications. 

Your research will focus on creating a continuum-based fluid dynamics model of human crowds, treating them as "thinking fluids" and using coarse-grained observables, such as density, mean velocity, and stress-like quantities, as descriptors. Drawing on active matter modelling, you will explore ways of incorporating the non-local perception and decision-making of pedestrians into constitutive relationships and boundary conditions with the aim of capturing realistic crowd behaviour. Where possible, you will also explore coupling the crowd model with hazards such as the spread of smoke and fire during incidents, contagion in pandemics, or violence in demonstrations, which will enable a multi-risk approach to assessment and decision support in high-stakes scenarios. 

You will work closely with a postdoctoral researcher to develop complementary data-driven approaches that use machine learning to inform, parameterise and validate crowd dynamics models. This collaboration will establish a continuous feedback loop to refine your model and provide valuable opportunities for knowledge exchange.

You will implement the final model in an open-source simulation environment, and your final demonstrator will simulate iconic Edinburgh events (e.g. Hogmanay on Princes Street, an Edinburgh derby football match, or a Murrayfield Stadium concert) using pre-captured datasets to showcase the predictive capabilities of the simulator.

Thanks to our partnerships with world-leading experts in crowd safety engineering and open-source software development, your work will directly impact public safety, urban planning and event management in the real world.

It is intended that the PhD start date will be 1 March 2026, and applicants should select that entry point when applying to the PhD programme.

Minimum entry qualification

• First or Upper Second-Class (2:1) honours degree or equivalent in Engineering, Physics, Applied Mathematics or a clearly related area, with a focus on continuum mechanics, differential equations, and numerical methods or a closely related area.
• Evidence of research in computational engineering, with a specific focus on hydrodynamic modelling of complex systems or a closely related area.
• Proficiency in scientific programming (e.g., Python, Fortran, C++).

Further information on University’s English language requirements for EU/Overseas applicants.

Desirable criteria

• Training in machine learning, ideally applied to model discovery and physics-informed approaches.
• Experience of computational fluid dynamics or agent-based simulation software.

Further information and other funding options.

School of Engineering stipend for 3.5 years, home or overseas fees, £5k research costs (over the duration of the project). The stipend rate for academic year 2025/26 is £21,935.