Stephane Hess

Stephane Hess is an internationally recognised expert in the data driven study and mathematical modelling of human choice behaviour. He has made contributions to the state of the art in the specification, estimation and interpretation of such models, as well as in facilitating the transition of ideas and approaches across disciplines, notably by also working in mathematical psychology and behavioural economics. Although a majority of his applied work has been conducted in the field of transport, he is also very active in health and environmental economics.

He is Professor of Choice Modelling and Director of the Choice Modelling Centre at the University of Leeds, where he is based in the Institute for Transport Studies. He is also a part-time Professor of Decision modeling, artificial intelligence (AI) and mobility research at Delft University of Technology. He is Honorary Professor in Choice Modelling in the Institute for Transport and Logistics Studies at the University of Sydney and Honorary Professor of Modelling Behaviour in Africa at the University of Cape Town.

Research interests

Together with his research team at the Choice Modelling Centre, he is setting the research agenda in applying choice modelling in new fields, including education, lifestyle choices, social (network) interactions and joint decision making. Advanced choice models require high quality data, and Hess and his team are leading the field in exploring and exploiting novel data sources, with numerous applications using ‘big data’.

He is also the founding editor in chief of the Journal of Choice Modelling and the founder and steering committee chair of the International Choice Modelling Conference. He serves on the editorial advisory board of two other leading journals; Transportation Research Part B and Transportation, as well as academic committees at leading international conferences. Together with David Palma, he is the author of Apollo, a highly flexible and powerful free tool for estimating and applying choice models.