"Keith Still is what I term an intuitive mathematician. He is one of the most creative and original thinkers that I know. He adds drive and determination, as well as considerable intellectual power to any group of which he is a part…...His intuition for subtle patterns of behaviour in complex data is impressive, the best I've ever seen.” Prof. Ian Stewart - Fellow of the Royal Society.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
G. Keith Still Benoit Mandelbrot Nick Gogerty
Above taken at a conference (2001) on the fractal nature of crowds and financial markets (Click here for link)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Keith has always been a mathematician, and he has always enjoyed music. It was while standing in a queue for a rock concert 20 years ago that these two interests collided to produce one of those classic ‘lightbulb’ moments. In that moment his thinking crystallised and a new branch of applied science was born - his PhD (Crowd Dynamics) has had over 60,000 downloads since publication (available on this site). Since that moment he has focussed on his academic and professional career on understanding and developing crowd sciences. He is now considered the world expert in his chosen field and his initial interest in crowd sciences has developed into a lifelong passion for public safety. At the same time the global appetite for large scale public events has grown, making the crowd sciences (modelling sites, behaviour, movement, developing crowd management plans) indispensable to the events, sports and entertainment world.
The last two decades were focussed on helping others understand crowds. His lectures, courses and workshops take event professionals and police officers through every step of preparation and execution of an event and the development of a robust crowd management plan. The delegates even learn to enjoy the maths! He also provides expert witness advice to the legal profession and has testified to the USA Senate House Committee. Now with his appointment at the G4S Professorial Chair in Crowd Dynamics he can extend the teaching/training and extensive experience onto eLearning platforms.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Short Biography
Professor Still has lectured at the UK Cabinet Office Emergency Planning College (EPC) since 1999 and has developed the EPC’s Crowd Safety materials and workshops as well as contributing to several other safety-related courses. Away from the EPC, Keith is Senior Consultant for Major Events at the UK’s leading security company, G4S Secure Solutions, part of the global G4S group.
Keith is a key contributor to G4S’s consulting-led delivery of major event safety and security solutions (click here for case studies). He leverages his experience and expertise from diverse mass participation events worldwide to augment and optimise G4S’s support to police services, venue owners and event promoters. His mathematical and behavioural modelling and simulation tools led to the development of a systematic blueprint for the crowd safety industry and his learning and development workshops teach others to understand the theory of crowd sciences, and to apply it to real events.
Alongside training and teaching. Keith’s current assignments include modelling for the Royal Parks, Westfield, Lend Lease Olympics-related planning work in East London, and development of police training programmes across Europe and USA. Keith was made a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (FIMA) in late 2007 and is the G4S Professor of Crowd Sciences at Buckinghamshire New University, near London.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Current Research Projects
Pressure Measurements in Crowds, Research into public safety in pedestrian environments, 3D Crowd Visualisation for control room applications, developing eLearning materials, writing a book on crowd dynamics and crowd modelling, developing short courses and white papers on the subject of crowd safety, crowd modelling and monitoring to the development of robust crowd management plans.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Project Experience
Click here for a detailed list of past projects.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Publications
Click here for a list of publications
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Numb3rs - USA TV show.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Personal Interests
Archery, Magic, Golf, Mathematical Modelling, Motorbiker (Harley Davidson - Heritage Soft Tail Classic), doing stuff with my family (Val, Harry, Erin and Rocket the Dog), Writing Music, Playing Jazz Saxophone - not necessarily in that order of course.
Keith on his Harley (in the showroom - 2005)