[UW-GIS-L] UW Roundtable on the Frontiers of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence

[Bo Zhao]

Greetings, GIScientists, Geographers, and Computer Scientists,

Please join us *at SMI 415c on Monday, October 31st at 4:30 p.m. *for a
Roundtable Seminar on *the Frontiers of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence
(GeoAI) *organized by the Humanistic GIS Lab <https://hgis.uw.edu/> of the
Department of Geography. The invited speakers will discuss their recent
projects, including

   - *Revealing the Flow Patterns Underlying Spatial Distribution Snapshots*,
   Di Zhu <https://cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/dizhu>, Dept
   of Geography, Environment, and Society at the University of Minnesota, Twin
   Cities
   - *Towards a Foundation Model for Geospatial Artificial
Intelligenc*e, Gengchen
   Mai <https://geography.uga.edu/directory/people/gengchen-mai>, Dept of
   Geography, the University of Georgia
   - *An Initial Investigation of Geographical Misinformation: Rethinking
   Satellite Imagery Authenticity and Trustworthiness*, Yifan Sun
   <https://geography.washington.edu/people/yifan-sun> and Bo Zhao
   <https://geography.washington.edu/people/bo-zhao>, University of
   Washington, Seattle

Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested in this
seminar. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Bo Zhao at
zhaobo at uw.edu.


=====Biosketch of the Speakers========

Dr. Di Zhu is an Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Science in
the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society at the University of
Minnesota, Twin Cities (UMN), a faculty member of the Minnesota Population
Center (MPC), an executive committee member of the MGIS program at UMN, and
the director of Geospatial Data Intelligence (GeoDI) Lab. Prof. Zhu holds a
Ph.D. in Cartology and GIScience from Peking University (PKU), a B.S. in
Geographic Information Systems and a dual B.S. in Economics both from PKU.
Prof. Zhu’s research aims at generating both theoretical and actionable
insights from spatiotemporal data by exploring the frontiers that bridge
geospatial analysis, artificial intelligence, and social sensing. He uses
integrated spatial thinking and cross-disciplinary methods to facilitate
Intelligent Spatial Analytics (ISA) and Geographic Knowledge Discovery,
focusing on the human-environment complexities within the population, urban
dynamics, public health, human mobility, spatial networks, socioeconomic
sustainability, crime, business optimization, etc. He has published more
than 30 articles in top-level peer-reviewed academic journals and
conference proceedings, including the International Journal of Geographical
Information Science, Annals of the American Association of Geographers,
GeoInformatica, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing,
Proceedings of the ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge
Discovery & Data Mining, etc. He is a reviewer for over 25 journals and
book publishers. He also serves as the guest editor in journals such as
Frontiers in Environmental Science, Sustainable Cities and Society, and
Remote Sensing. He is currently directing the Faculty Interactive Research
Program (FIRP) grant project subsidized by the Center for Urban & Regional
Affairs (CURA) in Minnesota. He has won academic accolades such as the
Rising Star Award of College GIS Forum in China, the Tang Lixin
Scholarship, Distinction of Doctoral Thesis of Peking University, and the
Early Career Award of GIS Research of the United Kingdom.

Dr. Mai Gengchen is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography,
University of Georgia, and an Affiliated Professor and Graduate Program
faculty of the UGA Computer Science Department as well as the UGA Institute
for Artificial Intelligence. Before he came to UGA, Dr. Mai was a
Postdoctoral scholar at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL),
Department of Computer Science, Stanford University. Dr. Mai got his Ph.D.
in Geographic Information Science from the Department of Geography,
University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2021. His research mainly
focuses on Spatially Explicit Artificial Intelligence, GeoAI, Geospatial
Knowledge Graph, Deep Learning on Remote Sensing, and Computational
Sustainability. Until now, Dr. Mai has published 52 peer-reviewed
scientific publications in top international journals and CS/GIS
conferences. He is the winner of 3 best paper awards (AGILE 2019, ACM K-CAP
2019 & 2021), and the recipient of various scholarships, fellowships, and
grants, such as the Top 10 WGDC 2022 Global Young Scientist Award, AAG 2022
William L. Garrison Award for Best Dissertation in Computational Geography,
The Jack and Laura Dangermond Graduate Fellowship, UCSB Schmidt Fellowship,
Microsoft AI for Earth Grant, and so on.

Yifan Sun is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at
the University of Washington (UW), in Seattle. He has a background in
Geographical Information Science, Urban Planning, and Computer/Data Science
and used to work for Bytedance as a full-stack data scientist. His doctoral
research is about geographical misinformation, especially focusing on
satellite imagery.

Dr. Bo Zhao is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the
University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, where he also directs the
Humanistic GIS Laboratory (HGIS Lab). Prior to his position at UW, Bo was
Assistant Professor at Oregon State University after completing a Postdoc
at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Bo’s research lies at the
intersection of GIScience and Human Geography. He has developed a uniquely
humanistic approach to examining GIScience and technologies, especially for
the interests of vulnerable populations, such as refugees displaced by
climate change effects or LGBTQ+ communities in repressive national
contexts. Bo studies how geospatial data streams from social media are used
in high-profile social and political struggles, looking, for instance, at
“location-spoofing” by activists—like indigenous groups involved in
territorial struggles—or by reactionary groups agitating over “fake news.”
His recent work on deepfake geography urges GIScientists to develop coping
strategies to the ambivalent nature of GeoAI in the age of “post-truth.”
The research framework of his recent studies has been funded by NSF, NIH,
National Geographic, Samsung, and Google.


-- 
Bo Zhao (he/him)
Associate Professor in Geography
University of Washington - Seattle
Smith Hall 416b, Box 353550
(206) 685-3846 | hgis.uw.edu
Request an appointment
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bands within the Suqua**mish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations.*
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