Wenhan Wu

Personal Profile

My name is Wenhan Wu, I have a background in engineering, crowd dynamics, and collective behavior. I received the Bachelor’s degree in engineering from the School of Automation, Central South University, Changsha, China, in June 2019, and the PhD degree in engineering from the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in December 2024. From April 2023 to April 2024, I was a joint PhD student at the Institute for Theoretical Biology, Department of Biology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. During my PhD, I used field observations, controlled experiments, data analysis, network science, modeling and simulations to study human collective behavior across scales, particularly in emergency situations. In addition, I also collaborated closely with Pawel Romanczuk’s lab and Guy Theraulaz’s lab, where I gained experience in studying collective animal behaviors from the perspective of collective information processing and data-driven modeling. From March 2025, I joined Senseable City Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral fellow to start independent research related to urban interactions and pedestrian behavior. I have studied and worked in Changsha(🇨🇳), Beijing(🇨🇳), Berlin(🇩🇪), and Dubai(🇦🇪), and will soon be relocating to Seoul(🇰🇷).

Research Interests

[2020–2022] Modeling Heterogeneous Individuals in Crowd Evacuation (Pre-doctoral Research)
[2022–2025] Human Subgroups in Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics (Doctoral Thesis)
[2024–2026] Behavioral Contagion Process in Animal Groups and Human Crowds (Joint Doctoral Research)
[2025–present] Analysis of Pedestrian Behavior Based on Trajectory Data (Postdoc Research)
[2022–2025] Phase Transition from Disorder to Order in Crowd Evacuation (Collaborative Research)
[2020–2025] Other Topics Involving Complex Network, Stairway Evacuation, Swarm Robotics (Collaborative Research)

Employment

[2025/03–present] Postdoctoral Fellow in Senseable City Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. Supervisor: Paolo Santi and Fábio Duarte

Education Experience

[2015/09–2019/06] Bachelor of Engineering, School of Automation, Central South University, Changsha, China. Supervisor: Prof. Keke Huang
[2019/09–2024/12] Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering, Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Supervisor: Prof. Xiaoping Zheng
[2023/04–2024/04] Joint PhD Student in Collective Information Processing Lab, Department of Biology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Supervisor: Prof. Pawel Romanczuk

Research Articles (as First^# & Corresponding* Author)

Unpublished

19. Sun or shade? Trajectory-level adaptation of pedestrian behavior to urban heat in Tokyo

Kee Moon Jang^#*, Wenhan Wu^#, Marco Seccaroni, Fábio Duarte*, Paolo Santi, Carlo Ratti

Nature Cities, 2026, Submitted.

Article Website PDF
Unpublished

18. From individual deviations to collective instability: micro–macro effects of pedestrian obstacles in dense crowds

Wenfeng Yi^#, Wenhan Wu*

Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 2026, Under Review.

Article Website PDF
Unpublished

17. Higher-order social networks and order transitions in evacuation: a hypergraph emotion–motion framework

Wenfeng Yi^#, Wenhan Wu*

Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 2026, Under Review.

Article Website PDF
RESS

16. A methodological comparison of interaction neighborhoods in the social force model of panic evacuation

Wenhan Wu^#, Wenfeng Yi*

Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 2026, 274: 112457.

Article Website PDF
CSF

15. How subgroups affect the power law governing pedestrian avoidance interactions

Jingwei Ge^#, Wenhan Wu*

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2026, 205: 117845.

Article Website PDF
RESS

14. Control strategies for order-disorder phase transition in crowd evacuation

Wenfeng Yi^#, Wenhan Wu*

Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 2025, 266: 111688.

Article Website PDF
RESS

13. Modeling the dynamical process of behavioral contagion in human crowds during evacuation

Wenhan Wu^#, Wenfeng Yi*

Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 2025, 266: 111649.

Article Website PDF
PRR

12. Escape cascades as a behavioral contagion process with adaptive network dynamics

Wenhan Wu^#, Xiaoping Zheng*, Pawel Romanczuk*

Physical Review Research, 2025, 7: 013300

Article Website PDF
IEEE TCSS

11. How Social Attributes Affect the Movement Process of Subgroups When Facing a Static Obstacle

Wenhan Wu^#, Wenfeng Yi, Erhui Wang, Xiaolu Wang, Xiaoping Zheng*

IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, 2024, 12(2): 658-670.

Article Website PDF
IEEE TITS

10. A Vision-driven Model Based on Cognitive Heuristics for Simulating Subgroup Behaviors During Evacuation

Wenhan Wu^#, Wenfeng Yi, Xiaolu Wang, Xiaoping Zheng*

IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2024, 25(11): 16048-16058.

Article Website PDF
ESWA

9. Experimental study on the decision-making and motion behavior of subgroups when facing a static obstacle during movement

Wenhan Wu^#, Wenfeng Yi, Xiaolu Wang, Erhui Wang, Xiaoping Zheng*

Expert Systems with Applications, 2023, 242: 122761.

Article Website PDF
IEEE TITS

8. A Systematic Analysis of Subgroup Research in Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics

Wenhan Wu^#, Xiaoping Zheng*

IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2023, 25(2): 1225-1246.

Article Website PDF
TRC

7. A Force-Based Model for Adaptively Controlling the Spatial Configuration of Pedestrian Subgroups at Non-Extreme Densities

Wenhan Wu^#, Wenfeng Yi, Xiaolu Wang, Xiaoping Zheng*

Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 2023, 152: 104154.

Article Website PDF
IEEE TMM

6. Automatic Identification of Human Subgroups in Time-Dependent Pedestrian Flow Networks

Wenhan Wu^#, Wenfeng Yi, Jinghai Li, Maoyin Chen, Xiaoping Zheng*

IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 2023, 26: 166-177.

Article Website PDF Supp.
IEEE TCSS

5. Simulating the Evacuation Process Involving Multitype Disabled Pedestrians

Wenhan Wu^#, Wenfeng Yi, Jinghai Li, Maoyin Chen, Xiaoping Zheng*

IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, 2022, 10(5): 2400-2410.

Article Website PDF
IEEE TITS

4. Modeling Crowd Evacuation via Behavioral Heterogeneity-Based Social Force Model

Wenhan Wu^#, Jinghai Li, Wenfeng Yi, Xiaoping Zheng*

IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2022, 23(9): 15476-15486.

Article Website PDF
TST

3. Visual Information Based Social Force Model for Crowd Evacuation

Wenhan Wu^#, Maoyin Chen, Jinghai Li, Binglu Liu, Xiaolu Wang, Xiaoping Zheng*

Tsinghua Science and Technology, 2021, 27(3): 619-629.

Article Website PDF
IEEE TITS

2. An Extended Social Force Model via Pedestrian Heterogeneity Affecting the Self-Driven Force

Wenhan Wu^#, Maoyin Chen, Jinghai Li, Binglu Liu, Xiaoping Zheng*

IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2021, 23(7): 7974-7986.

Article Website PDF
IEEE TCYB

1. Reconstruction of Tree Network via Evolutionary Game Data Analysis

Xiaoping Zheng^#, Wenhan Wu^#, Wenfeng Deng, Chunhua Yang, Keke Huang*

IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, 2020, 52(7): 6083-6094.

Article Website PDF

Research Projects

NERTSCP

2. Consequence Evaluation and Decision Support System for National Level Accidents

Wenhan Wu (Technical Research Part)

National Emergency Response Technical Support Center Project, 2023 - 2024
NKRDPC

1. Personnel Evacuation Technology and Assistance Systems for Disabled People in Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games

Wenhan Wu (Technical Research Part)

National Key Research and Development Program of China, 2020 - 2022

Award & Honors

[2016/12 & 2018/12] National Scholarship for Undergraduate Students, Central South University
[2016/10 & 2017/10 & 2018/10] Academic Excellence Scholarship (Grand Prize), Central South University
[2022/12] National Scholarship for Doctoral Students, Tsinghua University
[2021/10 & 2023/10 & 2024/11] Academic Excellence Scholarship (First Prize), Tsinghua University
[2025/01] Zheng Weimin Scholarship (First Prize), Tsinghua University
[2024/12] Outstanding PhD Graduates, Beijing General Colleges and Universities

Conference & Workshop

[2025/10/23–-2025/10/24] “MIT Senseable City Open Lab”, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy. (Presentation)
[2024/05/27–2024/05/31] “Collective Motions of Animals and Robots”, Research Institute Scientists De Cargèse, Cargèse, Corsica Island, France. (Poster Presentation)
[2024/02/15–2024/02/17] 25th Seminar “Pattern formation in Biophysics and Chemistry”, Berlin Center for Studies of Complex Chemical Systems, Erfurt, Germany. (Workshop)

Journal & Conference Reviewers

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological
Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies
Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives
IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering
Expert Systems With Applications
Chaos, Solitons and Fractals
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
International Journal of Social Robotics
International Environmental Psychology
Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory
Scientific Reports
Collective Dynamics
IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC)

Research Skills

Research Software: MATLAB, Eclipse, PyCharm, VS Code
Programming Code: C/C++, Python, R, MATLAB, LaTeX
Operating System (OS): Windows, Linux
Language Skill: Chinese (Native), English