Professor Martyn Amos

Professor

School: Computer Science

I'm Professor of Computational Science and founding Co-Lead of the University Urban Futures Interdisciplinary Research Theme (IDRT). I recently served as interim Associate Faculty Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange in the Faculty of Science and Environment.

My current research interests focus on crowds, safety engineering, and the dynamics of collective behaviour (in cells and social insects, as well as humans).

I studied Computer Science at Coventry University, before moving across town and gaining my Ph.D. in DNA Computing from the University of Warwick. I then held a Leverhulme Special Research (now Early Career) Fellowship at the University of Liverpool, before obtaining my first permanent academic post (a joint lectureship in bioinformatics, between Computer Science and Biology). In 2002 I moved to the University of Exeter, to take up a lectureship in bioinformatics. I moved to Manchester Metropolitan University in the summer of 2006; I started at MMU as a Senior Lecturer, was promoted to Reader in 2010, and then to Professor in 2012. In 2018, I returned to my North-Eastern roots, and took up my position at Northumbria.

In February 2023 I completed a 15-month stint as Acting Head of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences.

I have experience of managing large, inter-disciplinary and international projects (grant income as PI > £3M; funders include EPSRC, AHRC, the European Commission, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Wellcome Trust), and I previously led the Centre for Advanced Computational Science at MMU.

I'm a Fellow of the British Computer Society, and a member of the EPSRC Peer Review College and the UKRI Interdisciplinary Assessment College.

I am committed to public engagement with science; I'm the author of Genesis Machines: The New Science of Biocomputing, have written an entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and have validated a Guinness World Record. Our work is featured in the permanent exhibition of the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. I was the scientific consultant for Danger Decoded, a National Geographic TV show that appeared in 170 countries. I have made a number of media appearances, in print, on radio, and on TV, and I am an active contributor to the work of the Speakers for Schools charity.

Campus Address

Ellison Building
Northumbria University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 18ST

Email Martyn

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Crowd simulation and modelling, safety engineering, nature-inspired computation, synthetic biology, molecular computing, complexity theory.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Glossary for Research on Human Crowd Dynamics - 2nd Edition, Adrian, J., Amos, M., Appert-Rolland, C., Baratchi, M., Bode, N., Boltes, M., Chatagnon, T., Chraibi, M., Corbetta, A., Cuesta, A., Dezecache, G., Drury, J., Echeverría-Huarte, I., Feldmann, S., Feliciani, C., Filippidis, L., Fu, Z., Geoerg, P., Geraerts, R., Haddad, R., Haghani, M., Hofinger, G., Hopkins, N., Hrabák, P., Hunt, A., Jia, X., Kinateder, M., Kneidl, A., Konya, K., Köster, G., Künzer, L., Küpper, M., Lawrence, P., Lovreglio, R., Ma, J., Neville, F., Nicolas, A., Nishinari, K., Ntontis, E., Olivier, A., Parisi, D., Pettré, J., Postmes, T., Ramachandra Rao, K., Ronchi, E., Schadschneider, A., Schumann, J., Seriani, S., Seyfried, A., Sieben, A., Spearpoint, M., Sullivan, G., Templeton, A., Thompson, P., Tomoeda, A., Tordeux, A., Totzeck, C., Üsten, E., Van der Wal, N., Verma, A., Wijermans, N., Yücel, Z., Zanlungo, F., Zhang, J., Zuriguel, I. 19 May 2025, In: Collective Dynamics
Who yields and why?: A qualitative analysis of factors influencing pedestrian yielding behaviours, Ventress, J., Amos, M., Constable, M. 9 Jul 2025, Joint Action Meeting
A dynamic state-based model of crowds, Amos, M., Gainer, P., Gwynne, S., Templeton, A. 1 Jul 2024, In: Safety Science
Empirical evolution of an evacuation reporting template, Baig, K., Amos, M., Gwynne, S., Bénichou, N., Kinateder, M. 1 Jul 2024, In: Safety Science
Crowd-Sourced Identification of Characteristics of Collective Human Motion, Amos, M., Webster, J. 1 Nov 2022, In: Artificial Life
J-POP: Japanese Puzzles as Optimization Problems, Lloyd, H., Crossley, M., Sinclair, M., Amos, M. Sep 2022, In: IEEE Transactions on Games
PACO-VMP: Parallel Ant Colony Optimization for Virtual Machine Placement, Peake, J., Amos, M., Costen, N., Masala, G., Lloyd, H. 1 Apr 2022, In: Future Generation Computer Systems
Identification of Lifelike Characteristics of Human Crowds Through a Classification Task, Webster, J., Amos, M. 19 Jul 2021, ALIFE 2021: The Conference on Artificial Life, Cambridge, US, The MIT Press
Where Drills Differ from Evacuations: A Case Study on Canadian Buildings, Kinateder, M., Ma, C., Gwynne, S., Amos, M., Benichou, N. 1 Mar 2021, In: Safety Science
A Turing test for crowds, Webster, J., Amos, M. 22 Jul 2020, In: Royal Society Open Science