Edward Oughton
- Assistant Professor
Contact Info

- Name
- Dr. Edward J. Oughton
- Job Title
- Assistant Professor
- Office Number
- Exploratory Hall, Room 2411
Affiliations
Departments
- Geography & Geoinformation Science Department (Instructional Faculty)
- Geography & Geoinformation Science Department (Research Faculty)
Research Areas
- Technology
- Infrastructure
- Policy and economics
- Computational modeling
- Risk Analysis
Education
PhD, University of Cambridge
MPhil, University of Cambridge
About
Edward is known for developing decision-support models of digital infrastructure, having carried out 5G assessments for countries around the world. His work provides evidence on effective strategies to connect more people to a faster internet. Such information is vital for ensuring sustainable economic development as most new technologies require internet connectivity. The open-source 5G assessment software he has developed has been used to support national and international policy decisions.
Edward’s research is highly multi-disciplinary, drawing on analytical techniques from engineering and computer science, to answer new questions pertaining to policy, innovation, planning, economics, and sustainable development. Other research interests include developing novel risk analysis methods and applying them to understand vulnerabilities relating to cyber-attacks and space hazards.
Having been awarded over $800k in research funding, Edward has led many projects for organizations including the World Bank, Facebook Connectivity Lab, Oxford Economics, AIG, the Canadian Space Agency, Airbus Space and Defence, Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, HM Treasury’s National Infrastructure Commission, UK Department for Transport and the UK Met Office.
In 2017 he was nominated by the US Embassy for the International Visitors Leadership Program based on his digital infrastructure research. Edward holds an MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge and completed a post-doc at the Cambridge Judge Business School. Prior to GMU he was a Senior Research Associate at the University of Oxford where he retains an Honorary position.
Edward is looking for motivated graduate students to work on data analytics research. Please get in contact if you are interested in working on high-impact papers.
Selected Publications
Oughton, E.J., Russell, T., 2020. The importance of spatio-temporal infrastructure assessment: Evidence for 5G from the Oxford–Cambridge Arc. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 83, 101515. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2020.101515
Oughton, E.J., Russell, T., Johnson, J., Yardim, C., Kusuma, J., 2020. itmlogic: The Irregular Terrain Model by Longley and Rice. Journal of Open Source Software 5, 2266. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.02266
Oughton, E.J., Katsaros, K., Entezami, F., Kaleshi, D., Crowcroft, J., 2019. An Open-Source Techno-Economic Assessment Framework for 5G Deployment. IEEE Access 7, 155930–155940. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2949460
Oughton, E.J., Hapgood, M., Richardson, G.S., Beggan, C.D., Thomson, A.W.P., Gibbs, M., Burnett, C., Gaunt, C.T., Trichas, M., Dada, R., Horne, R.B., 2019. A Risk Assessment Framework for the Socioeconomic Impacts of Electricity Transmission Infrastructure Failure Due to Space Weather: An Application to the United Kingdom. Risk Analysis 39, 1022–1043. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13229
Awards
· Charles Benton Early Career Scholar Award (TPRC48: 2020)
· Best Paper 2019, Society of Risk Analysis
· Young Scholar Award 2019, Pacific Telecommunications Council
· Most Downloaded Paper 2018 and 2019, Telecommunications Policy (Impact Factor: 2.2)
· Top 10 Most Downloaded Paper 2017, Space Weather (Impact Factor: 3.7)
· Thirkill Prize 2015, Clare College, University of Cambridge
· Best Overall Performance on the Cambridge MPhil 2010, Royal Town Planning Institute
Contact Info

- Name
- Dr. Edward J. Oughton
- Job Title
- Assistant Professor
- Office Number
- Exploratory Hall, Room 2411