Andrew's PhD was funded by Knowledge Economy Skills Scholarships (KESS 2), a pan-Wales operation supported by European Social Funds (ESF), and was in partnership with Sport Wales, the main adviser to Welsh Government on sport.

Andrew said: "My thesis sought to improve our understanding and measurement of spatial accessibility to sporting facilities, enabling those who plan the provision of such services to take into consideration alternative modes of transport in relation to population demand for such facilities. This was done by utilising a range of open-source tools to calculate accessibility scores as a supply to demand ratio with the different modes of transport. It will allow organisations and policy makers that have sparse resources to help plan service provision for those in deprived areas who may not necessarily have access to private transport. 

"I am proud of what I have accomplished within my PhD and happy that my PhD has allowed me to contribute to knowledge in my field of geospatial information science and computer science.  

"My PhD has enabled me to explore new areas within my field; after a BSc in Computer Games Development and a MSc in Computer Science, I have been able to use Geographical Information Systems to address real-world planning problems.  

"I enjoyed taking part in conferences (both in person and online), meeting new people in the same field, writing papers for journals. USW, KESS and Sport Wales have given me all the support I needed to do this.

I’m currently working as a Senior Research Assistant at the University of South Wales on the ESRC-funded Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD) initiative , building on the research documented in my thesis to include active travel opportunities to a wider range of public and private services. Once my contract is complete, I plan on moving into industry using the type of geospatial technologies that formed the basis of my PhD study."