People

Qunying Huang

H.I. Romnes Professor

As a researcher, my passion is to bridge the gap between Geography and Computer Science. My research focuses on using AI/ML and remote (physical)/social sensing for natural hazards (e.g., floods and wildfires), digital agriculture, urban informatics, human mobility and social/environmental justice.
As an instructor, my passion is to help my students become fast, effective, and efficient learners, cultivate their problem-solving skills, and equip them with geospatial techniques for their future careers.
As a mentor, my passion is to help my advisees discover their passions, become independent, creative spatial thinkers, and avoid the detours, and pitfall that I have experienced in my early career.
As a human being, I love my family, friends, skiing, traveling, reading, recycling…..and so much more.

“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” — Forrest Gump
Full CV

Chenxiao (Atlas) Guo

Ph.D. Student

My name is Chenxiao Guo and I go by “Atlas”. I am a Geography Ph.D. student (Cartography and GIS subarea) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a doctoral minor in Computer Science. I received my M.S. in Geography from the University of Georgia (Athens, GA), and B.S. in Geographic Information Systems from Sun Yat-Sen University (Guangzhou, China).

With general interests in GIScience and cartography, my research direction includes spatiotemporal analytics, cartographic visualization, social media text mining, and disaster management, devoted to bridging geospatial data science and social good.

As an “Atlas”, collecting maps is deservedly my biggest hobby. Apart from a map geek, I also love English and Chinese calligraphy, stone seal carving (Zhuanke), as well as musical instruments like Guqin and tin whistle.

Know more about me and my work >> Personal Website

Songxi Yang

Ph.D. Student

I’m Songxi Yang, pursuing a Ph.D. in Geography at the Department of Geography, UW-Madison. I gained my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Remote Sensing at China University of Geosciences. I’m interested in characterizing Earth’s environmental challenges and consequences with RS, Cartography/GIS, and CS. During my master’s program, I investigated how vegetation photosynthesis and carbon fluxes respond to climate change using in-situ Earth observations, remote sensing imagery, and ecological modeling. Currently, my research interests also include active wildfire detection and machine learning.

Ashmita Dhakal

M.S. Student (Co-advise with Prof. A-Xing Zhu)

I am a graduate student in MS Cartography/GIS at UW-Madison. In 2019, I received my Bachelor of Engineering degree in Geomatics Engineering from Kathmandu University, Nepal. After my undergrad, I worked as a GIS Analyst/Civil Engineer at several organizations including ICIMOD and Verisk Nepal. I also worked as a Survey Officer for the Government of Nepal for the past two years.

I have diverse research interests which include agricultural and environmental modeling, spatiotemporal analysis using GIS and RS, application of AI in spatial analysis, and geovisualization. Apart from that, in my free time, I like traveling, hiking, gardening, watching movies, and reading novels.

Tang Sui

M.S, Geography (2024-present); Undergraduate (2022-2024), Geography

I am a graduate student with research focusing on Remote Sensing, Precision Agriculture, and Natural Hazards at UW-Madison. I have a keen interest in combining traditional remote sensing issues with advanced ML and DL methods. My current research focuses on using bi-temporal images of wildfire events to segment burnt areas, graph neural networks for hydrological streamflow prediction, and advanced deep learning models for precision agriculture . In my future career, I plan to continue working on change detection and exploring other issues using the latest methods.

Zekai Xu

M.S. Student, Statistics & Data Science

I am a master student majoring in Statistics and Data Science at UW-Madison. My research focuses on leveraging remote sensing and advanced ML methods to address challenges in precision agriculture and resource management. I am passionate about integrating technology and data-driven approaches to provide environmental & productivity insights for Agriculture.

Yi Zhuang

M.S. Student

I am a master student majoring in Data Science. I am generally interested in GIScience and geospatial data science and currently working on hydrology missing data inference and prediction with Graph Neural Network.

Mingda Wu

M.S, Data Science

I am a graduate student in Biological Systems Engineering  at UW-Madison. I am interested in computer vision and enjoy doing some research beneficial to society with AI. My current research focuses on developing  machine learning models for digital agriculture and for automatically assessing post-fire damage severity level  based on analyzing remote sensing images.

Kun Cai

Graduate, Accelerated / Non-Thesis Master of Science in Cartography & GIS

I am currently pursuing a Master’s degree in GIS and Cartography, with a strong interest in remote sensing and digital image processing. My research focuses on leveraging deep learning techniques to address challenges in wildfire burn severity mapping. I am actively working on developing advanced models to enhance problem-solving in this domain, aiming to contribute innovative solutions to the field.

Mose Skolnick

Undergraduate,  Data Science + Cartography & GIS

I am an undergraduate here at the University of Wisconsin, and I am double majoring in Data Science and Cartography & GIS. I am particularly interested in learning how to apply Data Science and GIS techniques to tackle real world problems, particularly areas that concern the environment.

Haiyue Wu

Undergraduate, Computer Science + Cartography & GIScience

I’m a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pursuing a dual major in CS and Cartography & GIScience. My primary research interests are centered around the crop yield prediction and visualization, including the development of interactive web functions, front-end design, database construction, and the implementation of running prediction models through the web interface.

Ainsley Zhang

Undergraduate, Computer Science + Data Science

I am an undergraduate student majoring in Computer Science and Data Science. My research interests focus on data-efficient learning within computer vision and its cross-disciplinary applications. I aim to develop models that leverage Efficient Deep Learning and Few-Shot Learning techniques, making them adaptable for fields such as Remote Sensing and beyond.

Meiliu Wu

(Ph.D., Geography, 2021-2024; M.S., Cartography/GIS, 2017 – 2019)

Lecturer (Tenure-Track Assistant Professor), University of Glasgow

Xinyi Liu

(Ph.D., Geography, 2018-2022; M.S., Cartography/GIS, 2016 – 2018)

Senior Research Scientist, ZooX Inc.

Jirapa (Jamp) Vongkusolkit

(M.S., Cartography/GIS, 2021- 2023; Undergraduate, Environmental Science, 2020-202)

Senior Research Scientist, PAII Inc.

Ishika Akula

(Undergraduate, Computer Science , 2021 – 2022)

M.S., Computer Science department, UW-Madison

Boyuan Zou

(Undergraduate, Computer Science , 2021 – 2023)

M.S., Computer Science department, UW-Madison.

Yang (Eric) Qiu

(Undergraduate, Computer Science  + Data Science, 2021 – 2023)

Software Engineer, ByteDance Ltd.

Bo Peng

(Ph.D., Cartography/GIS, 2017 – 2021)

Senior Research Scientist, PAII Inc.

Yuehan Qin

(Undergraduate, Geography & Computer Science Department, 2010 – 2022)

Ph.D, Computer Science, University of Southern California

Tianhui (Vicky) Cai

(Undergraduate, Computer Science Department, 2010 – 2022)

M.S, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

Zonglin Meng

(Undergraduate, Computer Science Department, 2017 – 2019)

Ph.D, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UCLA

Chris Scheele

(M.S., Cartography/GIS, 2015 – 2017)

Data Analytics Engineer, Arity

Zidong Zhang

(M.S., Cartography/GIS, 2014 – 2016)

Senior Software Engineer, Facebook

Duanyang Jing

(M.S., Cartography/GIS, 2014 – 2016)

Senior Software Engineer, Huawei

More proud badgers….

Jonathan Fok (2017)

Beichen Tian (2017)

Cassie Jorgenson (2016)

Catherine Epp Streiffer (Summer 2015)

Caitlin McKown (2015 Fall – 2016 Fall)

Chelbi Stromblad (2015 Spring)

Samuel Schumacher (2014)