Staff profile

Beth completed her undergraduate MEng degree in Civil Engineering and PhD at Newcastle University (UK). Her research focus is on human behaviour in emergency scenarios, considering a range of hazards across the globe and how this behaviour is captured computationally, particularly in agent-based simulations. This has highlighted the lack of representation in current computational evacuation simulations and Beth's forward research plan is focusing on this further.

Within the department Beth is the co-cordinator for outreach, working with local schools to promote engineering through a range of talks and hands-on activities. Beth is also the lead for the Women in Engineering Society (WES) group at Durham University, which has been set up to inspire, support, champion those who identify as women and those that support women engineers. The group is aimed at everyone from undergraduates to postgraduates to staff with the aim of fostering conversations around EDI initiatives and creating a more inclusive community. Each academic year, a programme of events is collated featuring diverse speakers from a range of engineering disciplines and career stages. 

Beth also has previous industry experience as a civil engineer, working in both consultancy and contracting roles across transport and water disciplines. Whilst in industry Beth was selected as a Future Leader by ICE President Professor David Balmforth and worked alongside him to explore innovation in the civil engineering industry, culminating in the production of an industry-wide report on the subject. 

Journal Article

• Barnes, B., Dunn, S., & Wilkinson, S. (2022). Replicating capacity and congestion in microscale agent-based simulations. Travel Behaviour and Society, 29, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2022.07.006
• Barnes, B., Dunn, S., Pearson, C., & Wilkinson, S. (2021). Improving human behaviour in macroscale city evacuation agent-based simulation. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 60, Article 102289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102289
• Barnes, B., Dunn, S., & Wilkinson, S. (2019). Natural hazards, disaster management and simulation: a bibliometric analysis of keyword searches. Natural Hazards, 97(2), 813-840. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-019-03677-2

Report

• Barnes, B., Coppenhall, P., Hove, T., Huett, J., Jefferis, P., McPhillips, S., & Roche, M. (online). Innovation: Stepping Up the Industry. [No known commissioning body]