Rate My Professor Ed Manley

Ed Manley is Professor of Urban Analytics in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, where he joined in 2019. He leads the Mobility Science Lab research group within the Institute for Spatial Data Science and serves as Pro-Dean for Research and Innovation in the Faculty of Environment. Previously, he was Lecturer and Associate Professor at the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London, where he completed his Engineering Doctorate. From 2018 to 2023, he held a Turing Fellowship at the Alan Turing Institute. Manley is also Honorary Professor at University College London. He has previously served as Director of Research, Interim Vice Dean for Research, and Interim Co-Head of School in the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at UCL. As Principal and Co-Investigator, he has led over £40 million in funded research from sources including EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, ERC, Wellcome Trust, and Leverhulme Trust. Key projects include serving as Principal Investigator on the UK-Canada AI Initiative RAIM for Responsible Automation for Inclusive Mobility, Co-Investigator and Flagship Lead on EPSRC INFUZE for zero-carbon mobility, Deputy Director of the ESRC Healthy and Sustainable Places Data Service, and Co-Director of the Consumer Data Research Centre. In 2022, he won the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Geography. He was shortlisted for the Newton Prize in 2020 and awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant in 2025.

Manley's research specializes in urban data science, agent-based modelling, spatial cognition, travel and mobility, and data visualisation. His work uses new data sources and computational methods, including machine learning, network science, and agent-based models, to analyze how spatial behaviours and bounded rationality shape urban dynamics and travel decision-making, particularly in response to shocks. He teaches on the MSc Urban Data Science and Analytics, leading the module Analytics for Urban Policy. Key publications include 'Entropy of city street networks linked to future spatial navigation ability' in Nature (2022), 'Global determinants of navigation ability' in Current Biology (2018), 'Digital technologies in the public-health response to COVID-19' in Nature Medicine (2020), articles in PNAS (2019), Scientific Reports (2021), The Lancet (2020), and the book Agent-based Modelling and Geographic Information Systems: A Practical Primer published by Sage. He holds an ORCID iD 0000-0002-8904-0513.