---
id: people/andrew-crooks
about:
  label: Andrew T. Crooks
  description: >-
    Geographer at the University at Buffalo who builds agent-based models tied
    to real places through GIS, and co-wrote a practical primer on the method.
  tags:
    - agent-based model
    - GIS
    - urban systems
person:
  affiliation: University at Buffalo
  role: geographer and agent-based modeller
  homepage: 'https://www.gisagents.org/'
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: 'GIS and Agent-Based Modeling: About (Andrew Crooks)'
      url: 'https://www.gisagents.org/p/about-gis-and-agent-based-modeling.html'
  created: '2026-11-02'
  reviewed: '2026-11-02'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
---
Andrew Crooks is Professor of Geography and a faculty member of the RENEW Institute at the University at Buffalo.[^1] Before that he was assistant and then associate professor of computational social science at George Mason University, where he co-directed the Center for Social Complexity.[^1] He studied geology and physical geography and then geographical information science at the University of Edinburgh, and worked as a research and information officer for Edinburgh City Council.[^1]

His PhD at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL, supervised by [Michael Batty](/people/michael-batty/) and Paul Longley and sponsored by the Greater London Authority, was titled Experimenting with Cities: Utilizing Agent-Based Models and GIS to Explore Urban Dynamics.[^1] It joined agent-based models to GIS so that agents could be linked to real places.[^1] He stayed at CASA as a research fellow in urban systems, building agent-based models of London, and his work since combines GIS, spatial analysis, agent-based modelling and social network analysis.[^1] He writes about new work in these fields on his site, GIS and Agent-Based Modeling.[^1]

He is the first-named author of [Agent-Based Modelling and Geographical Information Systems](/media/agent-based-modelling-and-geographical-information-systems/), a hands-on primer, and a co-editor of [Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems](/media/agent-based-models-of-geographical-systems/). He has been a guest on [The Flux](/media/the-flux/), a podcast about agent-based modelling.