Nov 9 Coffee Hour presented by Di Zhu

Please join us for our next Coffee Hour on Thursday, November 9th from 12:30-2 p.m. in 445 Blegen Hall. Lunch will be available at 12:30 p.m. and the speaker will begin at 1 p.m.

 Presenter:  Di Zhu, Department of Geography, Environment and Society, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 

 Title: Geospatial Data Intelligence for Social Sensing 

 Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now adopted in many geographical applications (GeoAI), while it is not well-introduced to geographers on how to take advantage of AI for new designs of spatial models and geographic knowledge discovery. AI techniques are often considered a “black box” and are believed to be extremely complicated compared to traditional spatial analytics, while the complex nature of human-environment systems requires geographers to embrace such computation innovations. With the help of rich spatiotemporal information in large-scale individual-level big geospatial data, I will introduce in this talk how spatially-explicit artificial intelligence can incorporate AI insights and geographic principles, and to achieve intelligent social sensing in human-environment systems, with empirical cases in characterizing human activities, detecting mobility flows, and understanding community structures.

Bio: Dr. Di Zhu is an Assistant Professor of GIScience in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Dr. Zhu holds a Ph.D. in Cartology and GIScience, a B.S. in Geographic Information Systems, and a B.Ec. in Economics all from Peking University. Di’s research bridges Spatial Statistics, Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI), and Spatiotemporal Social Sensing, focusing on human-environment systems within urban socioeconomics, public health, transportation & mobility, sustainability, ecosystems, etc.