Academic Pages of Yan Zhang
I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. My research focuses on using GeoAI and social sensing methods to study urban science, disaster response, and social inequality.
Motivation
How do we quantitatively characterize the space you inhabit? Is your health risk the same as your neighbor’s? My research is focused on answering these critical questions. We are pioneering a “Mobile Sensing and Environment Exposure Intelligent Computing Paradigm.” This is a smarter, more granular computational methodology designed to overcome the challenges of insufficient “scale” and “precision” in traditional environmental health assessments.
More Accurate Urban Understanding: By leveraging multi-modal geographic data (e.g., satellite remote sensing, social media, sensor networks) and advanced representation learning algorithms, we more precisely “read” and understand the city.
Dynamic Individual-Scale Sensing: Utilizing intelligent computing methods, we achieve mobile trajectory reconstruction and real-time environmental data sensing at the individual level. This means we can capture every change in your environmental exposure—whether you are on the street, in a park, or indoors.
By integrating a large-scale perspective with individual-level granularity, our research will ultimately be applied to address environmental inequity (or environmental justice) issues. We are committed to ensuring that environmental risks and resource allocation are achieved equitably across every community and for every individual.
News
2025.08: One GNN driven urban sensing paper (How does spatial structure affect psychological restoration? A method based on graph neural networks and street view imagery) has been included as an **ESI highly cited paper (1%) & ESI hot cited paper (0.1%)** PaperLink！ 
2025.08:co-charir of city sensing and computing seminar at 中国地理学会地理模型与地理信息分析专业委员会2025年学术年会
2025.08: PI, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Young Scientists Fund (Grant No. 42501579)
2025.07: One traffic estimation research based on the satellite image and ground based station research has been publisheds at **International Journal of Digital Earth** Link ！
2025.07: One mobility- based exposure review research has been publisheds at **Science Bulletin** Link ！
2025.05:co-charir of city sensing and computing seminar at 中国地理学会地理模型与地理信息分析专业委员会2025年学术年会
2025.05: One LLM driven urban sensing paper (Knowledge and Topology: A Two Layer Spatially Dependent Graph Neural Networks to Identify Urban Functions with Time-series Street View Image) has been included as an **ESI highly cited paper (1%)** PaperLink！ 
2025.04: **Bronze Medal** at the 50th Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions (Vehicle-Kilometrage Estimation Using Remote Sensing Data and Deep Learning) Link！
2025.04: One LLM driven crime dataset paper (An LLM driven dataset on the spatiotemporal distributions of street and neighborhood crime in China) has been accepted by **Scientific Data** DataLink ArticleLink and has been indexed by National Earth Observation Data Center and 5000 download News Link！
2025.01: One collaboration emergency management paper has been accepted by **Cleaner Engineering and Technology** Link ！
2025.01: One GeoAI review paper has been accepted by **地球信息科学学报** Link ！
2024.11: PI, Open Research Fund, State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University **No. 24I04** Link ！
2024.10: One LandUse Uncertainty related paper has been accepted by **Transaction in GIS** Link ！
2024.10: One environment exposure related paper has been accepted by **Computers, Environment and Urban Systems** Link ！
2024.9: One SVI related paper has been accepted by **ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing** Link ！
2024.08: **Guest Associate Editor**, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing! Link 
2024.8: Urban intelligent sensing series seminar based on GeoAI ！Link 
2024.6: Awarded the China-U.S. Scholars Program (CUSP) Grant for Conference Participation and Research Travel by the Institute of International Education (IIE)
Research Interests
My research lies at the intersection of geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI), social sensing, and urban studies:
Micro-scale Urban Perception
Utilizing urban sensing devices and crowdsourced data for urban function and traffic modeling.
Disaster Emergency Management
Integrating natural language processing with geo-tagged social media data for real-time, data-driven disaster response.
Environmental Health and Inequality
Understanding urban human-social systems through analysis of spatiotemporal big data.
- Micro-scale Urban Perception: Utilizing urban sensing devices and crowdsourced data for urban function and traffic modeling.
- Disaster Emergency Management: Integrating natural language processing with geo-tagged social media data for real-time, data-driven disaster response.
- Environmental Health and Inequality: Understanding urban human-social systems through analysis of spatiotemporal big data.
Education
- Ph.D. in Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, Wuhan University, 2023
- Joint Ph.D. , The National Univeristy Of Singapore, 2022
- M.S. in Geomatics Engineering, Wuhan University, 2020
- B.S. in Geomatics Engineering, Wuhan University, 2018
Selected Publications from 20+ Peer Review Papers
- Zhang Y, Kwan M, Ma H. Sensing Noise Exposure and Its Inequality Based on Noise Complaint Data Through a Vision-Language Hybrid Method. Applied Geography, 2024. (IF=4.0, SSCI Q1)
- Zhang Y, Liu P, Biljecki F. Knowledge and Topology: A Two Layer Spatially Dependent Graph Neural Networks to Identify Urban Functions with Time-series Street View Image. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 2023. (IF=12.7, SCI Q1,ESI 3%)
- Zhang Y, Li Y, Zhang F. Multi-level urban street representation with street-view imagery and hybrid semantic graph. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 2024. (IF=10.6, SCI Q1, ESI 3%)
Awards and Honors
- National Scholarship for Ph.D. Students, Ministry of Education (Top 3%), 2021 & 2022
- China Scholarship Council Scholarship for Studying Abroad, 2021
- Top 10 Inspirational Graduate Students, Wuhan University, 2023
For more details, please see my full CV.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or are interested in collaboration!
Get in Touch
Whether you have questions, suggestions, or are interested in collaboration, I welcome you to get in touch. Below are my personal WeChat and Official Account QR codes. Feel free to choose the most convenient method to connect with me.
Personal WeChat
Scan the QR code below to add me on WeChat, i will be like to have interdisciplinarity discussion and cooperation:
WeChat Official Account
Follow my WeChat Official Account (sensingcity,城市感知计算) for the latest updates and articles:
Other Contact Methods
- Email: sggzhang@whu.edu.cn
- GitHub: giserzy
- RedBook: 城市感知计算
Thank you for your interest and support! I’ll respond to your messages as soon as possible.
About WeChat and the Official Account
For those unfamiliar with WeChat:
- WeChat (微信) is a multi-purpose messaging, social media, and mobile payment app widely used in China and increasingly popular globally.
- A WeChat Official Account (公众号) is a platform within WeChat for individuals, businesses, and organizations to publish content and interact with followers.
By scanning these QR codes with the WeChat app:
- You can add me as a contact for direct communication (Personal WeChat).
- You can follow my Official Account to receive regular updates and content.
If you’re outside China or don’t use WeChat, feel free to use the other contact methods listed above.
Demo
Sensing City through Street View
City Dance
Count From Dec 2024