Rebecca C. Vandewalle

About

Dr. Rebecca C. (Becky) Vandewalle is a computational geographer and social science researcher who studies crisis-informatics, modeling and simulation, geospatial data science, and high-performance computing. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information at the University of South Florida.

Dr. Vandewalle investigates complex problems with a particular focus on exploring human activities across multiple spatial and temporal scales. An early background in classical archaeology and training in archaeological excavation introduced her to the use of modeling and simulation to explore human interactions and behaviors, especially in sparse data contexts. Through research at the intersection of high-performance geospatial computing, geographic information science, spatial networks, and agent-based modeling, Dr. Vandewalle adapts a simulation approach to better understand human-environment interactions.

Dr. Vandewalle’s current research focuses on data science and decision support in complex socio-technical contexts and adapting large-scale geospatial simulation for high-performance computing resources. Research topics include simulating information seeking and information sharing for decision-making and gaining situational awareness during emergency evacuations, analyzing emergency management observations and communication patterns in crisis contexts, and investigating the impacts of autonomous vehicles in extraordinary and hazardous situations.

Dr. Vandewalle is also interested in furthering accessible, computationally reproducible, and scalable geospatial data analytics. Dr. Vandewalle has experience in building custom geospatial software tools and visualizations, and supporting education and training for data science, spatial computing, and agent-based modeling.

Education

Dr. Vandewalle completed her PhD in Geography from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2025. While studying at Illinois, she was granted a 2022-2023 Frontera Computational Science Fellowship from the Texas Advanced Computing Center. She also has a strong interdisciplinary educational background, having earned a MSc in GIS and Archaeology from the University of Edinburgh, a Post-Baccalaureate certificate in Classics at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor’s in Greek and Roman Studies from Rhodes College.

PhD, Geography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign MSc, GIS and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland Post-bacc, Classics, University of Pennsylvania BA, Greek and Roman Studies, Rhodes College