In this session, Dr. Aoife Hunt will explore some unexpected applications of maths in the world of large crowd flow. Aoife works as a consultant on some of the biggest events and venues in the world (e.g., Wembley, the Eiffel Tower) to make sure that crowd flow is efficient and safe. In her talk, Aoife will demonstrate how maths is applied to help plan for crowds. She will introduce some cutting-edge simulation models being used to predict crowd behavior.

At the start of lockdown, Aoife led a targeted effort to provide a new and innovative technology solution to help with the challenges of social distancing. She collaborated with software developers, consultants and researchers to come up with a conceptual approach to quantifying social distancing rules within the context of spatial engineering – effectively stating what was the ‘maths’ behind social distancing and what impact this would have on the use of space.

There will be some new research explored as well as some familiar concepts (e.g., Pythagoras, quadratics, the normal distribution), but applied in an exciting real-world context. Aoife will also be exploring the impact of the pandemic (and social distancing) on people’s movement, showing how maths has been used by the UK government to help plan for reopening.

The audience for this event is Transition Year and senior cycle students.

Register your class here.