People

Yingjie Hu is an expert on GeoAI and the use of GeoAI for disaster management. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo (UB), The State University of New York. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and an Affiliate Professor of the UB Center for Geological and Climate Hazards and the UB AI and Data Science Institute. He is the author of over 80 peer-reviewed articles in top international journals, books, and conferences. He and his work received awards at international, national, and university levels, including the UCGIS Early/Mid-Career Research Award, AAG SAM Emerging Scholar Award, Waldo-Tobler Young Researcher Award, GIScience Best Full Paper Award, CPGIS Young Scholar Award, UB Exceptional Scholar: Young Investigator Award, Jack and Laura Dangermond GIS Graduate Fellow Award, Doctoral Scholarship from the Cartography and Geographic Information Society, AAG International Geographic Information Fund Award, and UCSB Geography Excellence in Research Award. His research was also covered by major media such as CNN, NPR, Reuters, and VOA News. He is passionate about doing GIScience research, training the next generation’s GIS leaders, and serving communities.

Ryan Zhenqi Zhou is a Graduate Research Assistant in the GeoAI Lab and a PhD student in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo (UB). He is interested in GeoAI, Disaster Resilience, Public Health, Urban Analytics, and Human Mobility.

Jiyeon Kim is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo (UB). Her research interests include GeoAI, human mobility, disaster resilience, and wildfires. She has research experience in image processing and deep learning models. She obtained her M.S. and B.S. from Ewha Womans University.

Zijun Wang is a master’s student in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo (UB). Her research interests include GeoAI, disaster resilience, and computational social science. She received her B.S. in GIScience from Huazhong Agricultural University and a minor in urban planning from Central China Normal University.

Jocelyn Zheng is a research intern in the GeoAI Lab and a high school student at Blind Brook High School in New York. She is interested in using machine learning and geospatial data to create a more sustainable environment! Currently, she is researching the use of geospatial foundation models for disaster management efforts.

Liyue Zhang will join the lab in Fall 2025 as a PhD student.

Mengqi Li will join the lab in Fall 2025 as a PhD student.

Kai Sun was a Postdoc Associate in the GeoAI Lab from 2023 to 2025 and a visiting PhD student from 2019 to 2021. During his time in the lab, he completed multiple papers on GeoAI and disaster management, such as the GALLOC data annotation tool, PyGRF, a review of POI conflation, and map alignment for knowledge graph construction. After completing his postdoc, he became a Research Associate in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Gaurish Lakhanpal worked as a summer research intern in the GeoAI Lab when he was a student at Stevenson High School. During his internship, he participated in research on geo-knowledge-guided GPT models for extracting disaster-related location descriptions and spatial cross-validation. After completing his summer internship, he became an undergraduate student in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University.

Wei Liu completed her M.S. in GIScience in Summer 2023. During her study in the GeoAI Lab, she focused on taking courses and developing her technical skills in GIS and machine learning. She also participated in an NSF-funded project on using GeoAI approaches for extracting location descriptions from disaster-related social media messages. After graduation, she works as a GIS specialist for the City of Atlanta.

Yue Ma completed her M.S. in GIScience in Spring 2023. During her study in the GeoAI Lab, she participated in a NASA-funded research project on using GeoAI to forecast vegetation dynamics in a global biodiversity hotspot, the Cape Floristic Region in South Africa. After graduation, she joins the University of Maryland, College Park as a PhD student.

Tev’ye Davis completed his M.S. in GIScience in Spring 2023. During his study in the GeoAI Lab, he focused on taking courses and developing his technical skills in GIS, remote sensing, and machine learning. After graduation, he joins the Osmose Utilities company as a GIS specialist.

Aleema H Arastu completed her B.S. in GIScience in Summer 2022. She took multiple courses with Dr. Hu, including Introduction to GIS, Web-based GIS, and GIS and Machine Learning. She is interested in using GIS to address challenges in climate science, ecosystem biodiversity, and sustainable communities.

Ting Chang completed her M.S. in GIScience in Summer 2021. During her study in the GeoAI Lab, she participated in a research project on using human mobility data and machine learning for understanding alcohol outlet visits and alcohol-related harms.

Jimin Wang completed his M.S. in GIScience in Summer 2020. During his study in the GeoAI Lab, he participated in a research project on developing GeoAI models for extracting location descriptions from social media messages posted during natural disasters.

Dale Sherman completed his B.S. in GIScience in Summer 2017. He worked with Dr. Hu during his undergraduate study on GIS.

Dylan Witucki completed his B.S. in GIScience in Summer 2017. He worked with Dr. Hu during his undergraduate study on GIS.