Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and the College
Director, Center for Spatial Data Science
Senior Fellow, NORC
Luc Anselin is the Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and the College, the Director of the new Center for Spatial Data Science and a Senior Fellow at NORC. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2008 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011.
Executive Director and Senior Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
5735 S Ellis Ave
Chicago, Illinois 60637
Julia Koschinsky is the Executive Director and Senior Research Associate of the Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago and has been part of the GeoDa team for over 18 years. She has been conducting and managing research funded through federal awards of over $8 million to gain insights from the spatial dimensions of urban challenges in housing, health, and the built environment.
Associate Director for Data Science, Center for Spatial Data Science
Xun Li, Ph.D. is the Associate Director for Data Science at the University of Chicago's Center for Spatial Data Science. Prior to joining the Center, he worked as the principal software engineer of the GeoDa and GeoDa-Web software at Arizona State University. He also held software engineering positions at Motorola R&D, Microsoft Research, and Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs.
Luis Bettencourt, Pritzker Director, The Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation
Researchers at the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation study the fundamental processes that drive, shape and sustain cities. They come from the social, natural, and computational sciences, along with the humanities. Together, they pursue innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship, develop new educational programs, and provide leadership and evidence to support global, sustainable urban development.
Assistant Instructional Professor of GIScience
Crystal Bae is Assistant Instructional Professor of GIScience in the Division of the Social Sciences and the College. Her research in spatial cognition focuses on geographic movement visualization, real-world navigation, cognition of neighborhoods and regions, and social decision making. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography with an Emphasis in Cognitive Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is a former postdoc of the Movement Data Science Lab at UCSB.
Emily Talen, Director and Professor of Urbanism
The Urbanism Lab is devoted to the study of urbanism at the University of Chicago. It includes course materials, research projects, and resources relevant to the built environment.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Erin is an Environmental and Urban Studies major and pre-med at the College. She is currently working on a project researching air quality and health in Chicago.
Computation Institute (CI) Summer Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Helena Abney-McPeek is a rising freshman at Harvard University planning to study computer science. Her work as a CI intern involves spatial analysis of oral cancer in Chicagoland.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Tony Aburaad is a Research Assistant at the Center for Spatial Data Science and a Masters student in Computer Science. Before joining, he worked at Nielsen doing marketing analytics and more recently the Computation Institute.
Visiting Scholar and Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Karina Acosta is a postdoctoral scholar who got her PhD in the field of Regional Science with minor in Demography at Cornell University. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked as a researcher at the Center for Regional Economic Studies at the Central Bank of Colombia. She also has a B.A. in Economics from the Universidad del Rosario (Colombia). Her research focuses on poverty, spatial statistics and population dynamics.
Computation Institute (CI) Summer Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Shiv Agrawal is a student at the University of Chicago's College with a concentration in applied math and physics. As a CI summer intern, he has been optimizing algorithms to compute access metrics and is working on solutions for implementing graph theory.
Data Science Fellow: Social-Spatial Networks
Javier Andres Rojas Aguilera is a student in the Master in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (MSCAPP) at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Javier previously worked as an econometrician at the Colombian National Planning Department, where he developed a passion for data-driven policy-making and data visualization. He holds a B.A. in economics from Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Javier will work with HeRoP lab researchers to examine how social networks and social geography affect HIV and HCV risks among young persons who inject drugs from suburban and rural.
Senior Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Associate Professor, Department of Economics (Cedeplar/FACE), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
Pedro Amaral is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. He is Chair of the Latin America Division of Regional Studies Association (RSA) and Deputy Secretary of the Brazilian National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Urban and Regional Planning (ANPUR).
Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Fusing his love for technology and smarter governance, Vidal Anguiano Jr. is driven to help government use data science and analytics more effectively, ethically, and equitably. He is excited by the prospect of local governments using spatial data science tools to implement localized, data-driven policy. He is currently a Data Science Consultant with Accenture Federal Services, specializing in implementing machine learning solutions for federal agencies. He holds a M.S. in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (MS-CAPP) from the Harris School of Public Policy and is a graduate of the College at the University of Chicago.
Summer Institute in Social Research Methods Intern and Quad Undergraduate Research Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Zander is a third-year Public Policy student with a strong interest in applying data to the study of governance. He is a Fellow at the Summer Institute in Social Research Methods, and his research interests lie in studying the public regulation of technology companies, particularly social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Lecturer in Geographic Data Science, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool (UK)
Dani Arribas-Bel is Lecturer in Geographic Data Science and member of the Geographic Data Science Lab at the University of Liverpool (UK). Dani regularly teaches Geographic Data Science and Python courses at the University of Liverpool and has designed and developed several workshops at different levels on spatial analysis and econometrics, Python and open source scientific computing.
Center for Data and Computing Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Yair Atlas is a rising sophomore at the University of Chicago studying physics and philosophy. His work as an intern involves making origin-destination data more accessible to researchers.
Research Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Mark Baker is a rising fourth year in the college majoring in computational and applied mathematics. He will be working to improve spatial insight discovery through exploratory analysis with GeoDa.
Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Çağlayan is a second-year Ph.D. student in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. She is interested in using GIS and remote sensing techniques to understand long-term human-environment interactions in archaeological data. She holds a BSc in Environmental Engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU, Turkey), a BA in Protohistory and Near Eastern Archaeology from Ankara University (Turkey), and an MSc in Settlement Archaeology from METU.
Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Desireé is a first-year MPP student at the Harris School. She is interested in incorporating gender perspectives in research on development and inequality, especially using data science and spatial analysis techniques. Her professional experience has been mainly in international organizations in the areas of local government, project management, and infrastructure. She has completed masters in Public Management from the Instituto de Estudios Superiores en Administración (IESA) and Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Vera Beilinson is a third year student at the University of Chicago specializing in computational and applied mathematics. She is helping to improve CSDS's GeoDa software program by tracking bugs and testing fixes.
Research Associate, HEROP
Serena Bernstein is a rising second year in the College majoring in Public Policy with a minor in History. She loves research and is particularly passionate about health disparities and global development. She especially looks forward to using geospatial tools to explore these areas.
Professor Emeritus, NHH Norwegian School of Economics
Roger Bivand is a professor emeritus in economics at the NHH Norwegian School of Economics. He received his PhD degree in geography from the London School of Economics in 1975, after undergraduate study in Geography at the University of Cambridge. His research interests are in developing and supporting the development of open source software for analysing spatial data, including spatial econometrics.
Research Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Margot Bolanos-Gamez is a second-year student at The University of Chicago studying both Environmental Science and Global Studies. She is part of the FLI network, as well as a recipient and member of Questbridge Scholars Program. Due to her interest in the intersectionality of environmental and public health, she has recently been accepted to the Global Health Alliance organization on campus as well as the Summer Institute in Social Research Methods to study GIS and spatial analysis to also apply in research of the relevant theme of the opioid crisis.
Summer Institute in Social Research Methods Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Ben is a rising third-year in the College majoring in Computational and Applied Mathematics. He is interested in exploring how social scientists utilize mathematics, statistics, and computer programming to analyze data and convey their results visually.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Population Health Institute
Lawrence Brown, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. He is also the director of the Black Butterfly Project, and former director of County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Liang Cai received his MA in social sciences from UChicago. He is interested in urban sociology, environmental criminology, and human geography. At CSDS he is helping to test functions for the new version of GeoDa and more.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Kenna is a student in the College majoring in Visual Art. She is working on projects for the US Covid Atlas, and is interested in data visualization
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Yandong Cao is a PhD student in Economics at the Renmin University of China. His research focuses on firm efficiency and innovation, industrial development, land policy and applied econometrics. He has a BA in Physics from Lanzhou University and an MA in Economics from the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC (National Academy of Governance).
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Nick Carola is a student at the University of Chicago's College. He is helping to improve CSDS's GeoDa software program by tracking bugs and testing fixes.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Cyrus Caughey is a second year in the College majoring in Geographical Sciences and Statistics. He is also Vice President of the Tobler Society, which is the Youthmappers Chapter on campus.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Coro Chasco is an Associate Professor at the Departament of Applied Economics at the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid where she also directs the ECONRES research group (https://econresuam.wordpress.com/). She works in applied econometrics and spatial analysis, with applications to regional inequalities, housing prices, environment, tourism and quality of life. She earned her PhD and graduated with honors in Applied Economic Modelling at UAM. She was a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois (2004) and Adolfo Ibáñez University, Chile (2014), and a visiting professor of the University of Franche-Comté, France (2013-2014).
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Laura Chen is a fourth year at the College, majoring in Creative Writing. She is interested in storytelling via data visualization, digital analytics, and social media. She is currently working on communications for the US Covid Atlas project.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Ruxin Chen is a master student of Computational Social Science at the University of Chicago. Her research interests include income inequality measure, hypothesis testing and bootstrapping procedure. She is helping to develop and improve methodologies in spatial econometrics.
Quad Research Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Allie is a third year undergraduate student in the College double majoring in Computer Science and Media Arts and Design with a minor in Social Problems, Inequality, and Change. She is interested in data visualization and the way it can be applied to spatial data to make it approachable and digestible. In her free time, Allie captains UChicago’s Ultimate Frisbee Team.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Maia Conrado is an intern at the Center and a second-year Computer Science major in the University of Chicago's College. She has worked at Motorola Solutions as a UX Design/Software Development intern and at the University of Chicago Research Computing Center.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Lecturer, National Centre for Geocomputation, Maynooth University in Ireland
Kevin Credit is a Lecturer at the National Centre for Geocomputation at Maynooth University in Ireland. Kevin’s work is broadly interested in better understanding how planning policy influences sustainable economic development outcomes, such as entrepreneurship. His dissertation research looks specifically at the impact of public transit investments on the spatial distribution of new businesses, as well as the relationship between walkable land use patterns (including elements such as block size, density, and land use diversity) and business sales volume.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Andrés Crucetta is a candidate for the Masters in Computational Analysis for Public Policy (MSCAPP) at the University of Chicago. He’s interested in using technology and data to create healthier communities. Prior to UChicago, he worked in the healthcare sector helping medical centers use data to create a better patient experience and reach more people. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science and School of Social Service Administration
Yan Cui is a masters student in Computer Science at UChicago. He has a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University, where he studied Computer Science. Previously, he worked at the National Lab of Intelligent Technology & Systems at Tsinghua University.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Economist, The World Bank Group, Washington, DC
Girum Dagnachew Abate is an Economist at the World Bank Group in Washington, DC. His current research interests include macro-financial linkages, macromonomeric modeling, economic growth and applied econometrics.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Rosa Danenberg is a PhD student at Department of Urban Planning and Environment at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, where she also works at the Centre for Future of Places. Her PhD research focuses on streets as public spaces, particularly main streets and ethnic entrepreneurship. She has a background in social science and urban planning.
Elisabeth Moyer, Faculty Director, Associate Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences
The Center for Robust Decision-making on Climate and Energy Policy (RDCEP) brings together experts in climate science, statistics, computer science, economics, energy, public policy, and law to undertake a series of research programs aimed at improving the computational models needed to understand future climate impacts, evaluate policies, and make robust decisions based on outcomes.
Summer Institute in Social Research Methods Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Gustavo is a rising second-year at the College, intending to major in Economics with a minor in Geographic Information Science. His work as a research assistant focuses on analyzing travel times trade-offs between different modes of transportation in Chicago.
Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Keyan attends the Illinois Math and Science Academy. He is working with Dr. Bae on research about Chicago neighborhoods.
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, University of Canterbury
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
jonathan.dunn@canterbury.ac.nz
Jonathan Dunn is a senior lecturer in linguistics at the University of Canterbury (NZL) where he uses computational models to understand spatial variation in language as part of the earthLings project (www.earthLings.io). The goal is to find out both (i) how large-scale population movements influence language and (ii) how information about human geography is available through language data.
PhD student in the PhD Land, Environment, Resources and Health program at the University of Padova
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
luisafernanda.eussevilla@phd.unipd.it
Luisa Eusse-Villa is a PhD Student in the PhD Land, Environment, Resources and Health program at the University of Padova in Italy. She holds a joint MSc in Sustainable Forest Management from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Padova. She is originally from Medellín, Colombia, where she completed a BSc in Forest Engineering. She is interested in applying spatial data analysis to Environmental and Resource Economics to understand better the complexity of societal preferences towards different types of goods. Her PhD research includes modelling spatial heterogeneity in consumer preferences and explores how the spatio-temporal context affects willingness to pay estimates.
Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Marcos is a student in UChicago's MA Program in the Social Sciences who is currently concentrating in Geographic Information Science. Since graduating with a BA in Political Science from Universidad Torcuato di Tella, he has worked in the Argentine public and private sector. He is currently interested in the study of the intersection between voting patterns and spatial processes.
Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Irene is a Research Associate at the Center. She has a Bachelor’s in Political Science from ITAM in Mexico City and a Master’s in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. She previously worked doing poverty measurement research for the Mexican government. Her current research interests are social dynamics, access to services, and urbanization.
Center for Data and Computing RA, Center for Spatial Data Science
Felix is a High school student who loves geography, history and math. He is helping to improve tutorials and demos to teach GeoDa.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Richárd Farkas is an assistent lecturer at Department of Economics and Econometrics at University of Pécs, Hungary. He is currently working on spatial development possibilities of modeling cost pass-through analysis.
Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Irena is a third-year high school student at the Illinois Math & Science Academy. She is an avid learner and passionate about understanding computation for social good.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Jacob Gaynor is a fourth-year geographical science major and computer science minor in the College. He is also an Urbanism Research Assistant, working on the City Cents project to map and analyze where public money is spent.
Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Samuel is a high school senior at the Illinois Math and Science Academy. He is interested in improving public transit access for underserved Chicago communities using spatial analysis tools.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Adriana Gonzales is an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago, entering her 3rd year as an Anthropology and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies double major. She is a passionate advocate for students and global communities of color, engaging in various on- and off-campus opportunities to use her skills for the greater good. She is currently translating and disseminating geospatial research relevant to current policy making so it is accessible to a wider audience, ultimately showing people why thinking geospatially matters.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Hengyu Gu is a PhD student in regional economics at Peking University. His research interests include population geography, urban computation, regional economic analysis and urban planning. Before starting his PhD, he completed a bachelor's degree in geographic information science (GIS) at South China Normal University. He applies spatial econometrics to empirical studies -- so far, he has published over 20 articles. At present, he is working on a project re. the National Academy of Innovation Strategy about the intention of highly skilled workers to migrate in China.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Firat Gündem, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Dokuz Eylül University in the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Economics in Izmir, Turkey.
Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Chandler is a current MPP student at the Harris School and graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a B.A. in Political Science and Legal Studies. Chandler started his career in the classroom as a City Year AmeriCorps volunteer serving Southeast Washington, D.C. He also worked at the Afterschool Alliance, where he helped expand opportunities to after school programs in areas impacted by the opioid crisis.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Technical Lead, Open Spatial Lab at the Data Science Institute
Dylan Halpern is the Technical Lead for the Open Spatial Lab at the Data Science Institute. He used to work as the Senior Software Engineer for the US Covid Atlas at CSDS and Herop. Utilizing methods of geospatial data analytics, visualization, and web development, he works in domains of public health, urban experience and activity, and transit. He holds a Master in City Planning from MIT, and previous positions include research roles with MIT Senseable City Lab, Civic Data Design Lab, and City Form Lab, and a Fulbright research fellowship in Brazil.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Yeqing Han is an MSc student in Spatial Data Science at the Key Research Institute of Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development at Henan University. Her core research interests include spatial modeling and Python programming. Yeqing is currently working on regional economic analysis with spatio-temporal models and remote sensing data.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Pedro Herrera-Catalán is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). He holds a master's degree from the London School of Economics and a B.A. from the Catholic University of Peru. His research interests focus on industrial agglomeration, network externalities, and spatial interaction modelling. He is currently working on research that involves a sensitivity analysis of scale effects in origin-destination flow models using linear and nonlinear estimation methods.
Summer Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Lea Hoefer is a current 3rd year clinical resident in the General Surgery Program at University of Chicago Medicine. Prior to attending medical school at the University of Chicago, she attended Iowa State University and completed undergraduate studies in Political Science & Global Resource Systems. She is interested in how spatial data science can be applied to the field of surgery to identify how place impacts health & outcomes, both pre- and post-operatively, as well as how this information can be leveraged to drive location-specific changes in individual patient care, health systems structures, and local policy.
Summer Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Ethan Jiang is a student in the College majoring in Economics with a specialization in Data Science. He is interested in the spatial dimensions of environmental justice and public health, particularly through the lenses of quantitative analysis and data visualization.
Research Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Alexa Jin is a rising second year in the college studying Math and Economics. She is working with the CSDS on a spatial project that explores the multi-dimensional risk environment impacting the opioid crisis in the US.
Social Science Division (SSD) Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Sam is a third-year Environmental & Urban Studies major in the College. He is co-president of the labor solidarity group Students Organizing United with Labor and a fact-checker for the South Side Weekly. As an SSD intern, he is focusing on identifying hotspots of fentanyl-related deaths within urban, suburban and rural areas of New Jersey. Additionally, he is determining if there are any differences in the specific locations where fentanyl-related deaths occur (in residences, in public areas, etc.) by geographic zone.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Saurabh Kalra is a Master in Science in Environmental Science and Policy (MSESP) candidate at the Harris School of Public Policy, where he focusses on Environmental and Health Policy. He did his college from Ohio State University in Economics followed by a two-year Teach for India Fellowship. Saurabh is excited to join the CSDS and will be working on the Spatial-Temporal analysis of healthcare data.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Isaac Kamber is a student at the University of Chicago's College with a research assistanship of the Social Science Undergraduate Research Initiative. He is working on making sensor data from the Array of Things Project and satellite data from NASA more accessible to researchers and the public.
Atlas Spatial Data Science RA
James is a second-year graduate student pursuing an MSc in Statistics. He aims to use data driven techniques to make inferences on the relationships of societal factors and environmental phenomena.
Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Jordan Kemp is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago Department of Physics. He researches novel theories of social and biological organization by studying agent decision-making in noisy environments. He is part of an interdisciplinary team to customize UC Berkeley's course "Sense & Sensibility & Science" for UChicago in spring 2024. The course lets students experience how they can use scientific thinking to improve individual and collective decisions in a democracy.
DSI Summer Lab Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Justin Kleidermacher is an undergraduate at the University of Chicago studying computer science. He is working with Luc Anselin on web-based exploratory spatial data analysis solutions.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and GiScience at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Marynia A. Kolak is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She investigates issues of equity across space and time using applied spatial econometrics and statistics with policy-driven, systems-integrating solutions. Her current research intersects domains of food access, public health, and housing.
James Evans, Director, Knowledge Lab, Professor, Sociology
Knowledge Lab seeks to leverage insights into the dynamics of knowledge creation and advances in large-scale computation to reimagine the scientific process of the future by identifying gaps in the global knowledge landscape, areas of rich potential for breakthroughs, and automating discovery through the generation of novel, potentially high impact hypotheses.
Research Fellow, ICPSR, University of Michigan
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Sara Lafia is a Research Fellow at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan where she studies the impact of data curation on issues of data discovery and reuse. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from UC Santa Barbara with an emphasis in Information Technology and Society.
Computation Institute (CI) Summer Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Arpan Laha is a student in copmuter science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As a CI intern he is working on a project to make Argonne's Array of Things data and NASA satellite images more accessible for research.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Yutian is a second-year Masters in Computational Social Science (MACSS) student, interested in spatial data science.
Research Associate, HEROP
Liana is a first-year MPP student at the Harris School and also a pianist of the Piano Performance Program at the Music Department of UChicago. She graduated from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences with a B.S. in Human Geography and Urban-rural Planning. She was also a visiting student at the Department of Applied Mathematics of Columbia University. Her research interests include big geo-data mining and regional development.
Research Assistant, Harris School of Public Policy and Center for Spatial Data Science
Patrick is a candidate for the MS degree in Computational Analysis and Public Policy at the University of Chicago, jointly administered by the Department of Computer Science and the Harris School of Public Policy. His research and policy interests include evidence-based approaches to human capital development in Maine. At Harris and with the Center, he assists Professor Dan Black and Dr. Jamie Saxon with studies of rural brain drain. Patrick is an elected executive of Harris Student Government. Prior to pursuing graduate studies, he held management positions in higher education, start-up finance, and state events. He received his BA degree in Government from Bowdoin College.
Research Fellow in Economics at the University of Bologna
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Alexander Lehner is a research fellow in economics at the University of Bologna focusing on the classic question of why some countries are rich and others not. He won the Young Researcher Prize of the Regional Science Association International in 2018. His research agenda is on the intersection of spatial economics and economic development, touching upon urbanization/agglomeration, migration, fertility, and the roots of gender inequality.
Research Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Brian Li is a rising Senior at Naperville North High School. He likes digital art, web design, and programming, and is interested in the ways data science can be utilized to make a difference.
R Spatial Advocate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Angela has a dual Bachelor’s in Economics and Public Policy Studies from the University of Chicago. She is leading weekly workshops to help academics improve their research computing skills and developing a website to share spatial analysis resources developed by the Center.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Shuaishuai Li is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the School of Government at Peking University. His research interests include industrial clusters, organizational behavior and destination management. He is currently working on spatial effects in industrial cluster innovation, taking China's automobile industrial cluster as an example.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Olina is a rising third-year at the University of Chicago majoring in astrophysics. She is working on scraping and analyzing spatial data related to opioid overdoses in the United States.
Summer Institute in Social Research Methods Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Chen is a rising fourth-year in the College majoring in math and statistics. He is interested in exploring applications of mathematical and statistical techniques in the social sciences and public policy.
HEROP Data Engineer RA
Qiwei Lin is a candidate for the Masters in Computational Analysis for Public Policy (MSCAPP) with a focus on machine learning, international development, urban and health science. His research interests include how to combine novel data sources and machine learning methods to inform the allocation of social support resources and to improve the measurement of development outcomes in countries where reliable official statistics are lacking. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Statistics and Political Science from University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.
Assistant Instructional Professor of GIScience
Yue Lin is an Assistant Instructional Professor of Geographic Information Science in the Division of the Social Sciences and the College. Her research is focused on geocomputation, geospatial data science, and digital privacy and justice. Her current work involves developing computational methods to ensure privacy, fidelity, and equity in the dissemination and mining of geospatial data. Yue received her doctorate in Geography from the Ohio State University in 2023.
Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Qinyun Lin is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Spatial Data Science. Her research interests include sensitivity analysis, causal inference, mediation analysis, social network analysis and multi-level models. Her dissertation proposes sensitivity analysis techniques for presence of spillover effects and heterogeneous treatment effects in multisite randomized control trials. Her dissertation work also looks at unobserved mediator as a post-treatment confounder in causal mediation analysis.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Yuming Liu is a candidate in the MACSS program at the University of Chicago. He focuses on analyzing the spatial-temporal patterns and integrating data and spatial analysis to predict health outcomes. He received his B.A. degree in Mathematics from Bard College.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Alex is a first year master student in computer science at UChicago. Prior to joining, he worked in the Computer Game Lab at Beijing Institute of Technology. He is currently working on integrating Python code into Geoda.
Research Associate, HEROP
Marc David Loeb is a second year student of the Masters of Science in Computational Analysis in Public Policy (MSCAPP) program at the Harris School of Public Policy. Before this he studied geography, history, and public policy as a University of Chicago undergraduate. Marc takes a particular interest in the history of American suburbia, the policies that brought it about, and its implications for labor allocation, affordability, racial inequality, and the environment in the present day.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Grace Lu is a Research Assistant and a fourth-year Computer Science student in the College. She previously worked at the Knowledge Lab studying Wikipedia as an open source knowledge database and co-authoring "Amplifying the impact of open access: Wikipedia and the diffusion of science" published in JASIST.
Summer Institute in Social Research Methods Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Richard Lu is a College student at the University of Chicago, majoring in applied mathematics and economics with a specialization in data science. He is working on a research project related to computing travel times and spatial access metrics at scale.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Richard Lu is a student in the University of Chicago’s College, majoring in Applied Mathematics and Economics. Building on his interests in health economics and quantitative data analysis, he is currently working on a project researching the spatial relationships between air quality and health outcomes in Chicago.
Research Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Rosalyn is a homeschooled rising high school senior who has a passion for computer programming, data science, and artificial intelligence. She hopes to play a part in how these technological areas of interest can be applied to research and the real world.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Stuart Lynn is a Research Director and Senior Principal Software Engineer at the Center. His interests include widening the participation in scientific discussion and inquiry to non-traditional communities through the development of tools and active participation in citizen science and collaborative processes. He holds a Master in Mathematical Physics and a PHD in Astrophysics from the University of Edinburgh. In previous roles he has worked with non-profits and NGOs with the Two Sigma Data Clinic, lead the Data Science team at CARTO and was the technical lead for the citizen science platform The Zooniverse.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Michigan -- Ann Arbor
Robert is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Michigan -- Ann Arbor. He received his PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University. His research focuses on the economic outcomes of people and places: why some cities and regions do well while others do poorly, and when individuals are and are not able to benefit from economic growth. Before starting his PhD he completed a Masters in City Planning and worked as a consultant on fair lending regulation.
PhD Candidate in Economics, Sapienza University of Rome
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Frantisek Masek is a PhD candidate in Economics at Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Economics and Law. His main research lies in the fields of monetary policy and heterogeneous agent models. Simultaneously, he conducts research in causal inference, especially using quasi-experimental methods in the spatial econometrics framework.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Kamaria C. Massey is a doctoral candidate in the Urban Educational Leadership program at Morgan State University. She currently focuses her research on the effects of historical trauma in education.
Summer Institute in Social Research Methods Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Atman is a third-year student in the College, studying Political and Data Science. He will be working on a project about detecting new insights in GeoDa. He is also interested in documentary filmmaking.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Lorenz Menendez is an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago majoring in Economics and Geography. He has a strong background in GIS on a variety of open-source and proprietary platforms. He previously interned with the City of Santa Clara on a project to optimize infrastructure asset management by redefining streets as surfaces in GIS.
Community and Mapping Analyst, Center for Spatial Data Science
Moksha Menghaney is a Community and Mapping Analyst at CSDS. Her interests lie in integrating GIS and spatial analysis with evidence-based methods for policy evaluation and implementation. She previously has 6 years of experience in investment management working as a quantitative modeler and holds a M.S. in Financial Engineering from Columbia University.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Gabe is in his third year at the College and plans to major in Public Policy and Geography. Currently studying abroad in Santiago, Chile, Gabe is working on a project analyzing the spatial relationship between air quality and health (and improving his Spanish!). Gabe is thrilled to join the Center as a Research Assistant this quarter.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Grant Morrison is a student at the University of Chicago's College. He is helping to improve CSDS's GeoDa tutorials.
Applied Data Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Andrew Morse is an Applied Data Fellow with the Center for Spatial Data Science. As a researcher, his interest is in developing data-based solutions to improve the equity and well-being of our communities. He will hold an M.S. in Analytics from the University of Chicago as of 2021. Currently, he is working on research exploring the spatial relationships between environmental factors, social vulnerability, and health outcomes.
Research Associate and PhD Candidate with the Chair of Urban Development at the Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Johannes Moser is a research associate and PhD candidate with the Chair of Urban Development at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). He is currently investigating relations between high-speed rail and socioeconomic outcomes in Germany. His main research interests are spatial statistics and econometrics, transport geography, applied network science and economic history. He currently works on the spatial distribution of firm locations and real estate price developments as well as on space-time visualizations.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Cecile Murray is a graduate student at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. At CSDS, she is helping analyze the social and spatial networks of American neighborhoods.
Data Science Fellow: Measuring Accessibility
Ally Muszynski is a recent graduate of the College and holds a B.A. in Environmental & Urban Studies and Public Policy. In August she will graduate with an M.A. in Social Sciences with a concentration in GIS (MAPSS). She is interested in environmental equity and sustainability and hopes to pursue a PhD in this area of study in the future.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Vincenzo Nardelli is a Master’s student in Data Analytics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan with a specialization in data science, spatial analytics, economics and statistics. His Masters thesis is addressing sampling problems in house price modeling using open data from Multiple Listing Services, AirBnB, Twitter data on crime, other scraped web-based data, open Census characteristics etc. for Milan. As part of this, he is developing workflows for how to update his maps and results automatically (using postgres/postgis, Python and R/R Shiny).
PhD Candidate in Human Geography at the Geographic Data Science Lab (GDSL) at The University of Liverpool
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Niall Newsham is a PhD student in human geography at the Geographic Data Science Lab (GDSL) at The University of Liverpool. His research interests are centred around spatial demography, population change and population projection methods. His PhD project studies the extent, causes and future of sub-national population declines across Europe.
Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Yicole attends the Illinois Math and Science Academy. She is working with Dr. Bae on research about Chicago neighborhoods.
Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Jenny (Qiyun) Ni is a fourth-year undergraduate at the University of Chicago. She is currently double majoring in economics and statistics and is interested in social science research.
College Research Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Logan is a third year economics major and computer science minor at the University of Chicago. He is currently developing a framework to help researchers and city officials analyze the public's access to health and social services in urban environments.
Teaching Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Erin is a Master's student in the Computational Social Science program at the University of Chicago. She has a Bachelor's from the University of New Mexico, where she majored in Criminology and minored in Statistics. She has previously interned with the New Mexico Sentencing Commission, the New Mexico Statistical Analysis Center, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
George Oliver is a Masters student in computer science at the University of Chicago. His intern work involved creating a GUI to make the computation of multi-modal travel times and metrics accessible to researchers and cities.
Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
H.I. is an undergraduate student at The University of Chicago majoring in Mathematics and Statistics. He is looking to pursue a career in data science, and his research interests are Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. He is currently working on expanding the spatial analysis teaching tools to a modern sf framework in R.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Yoon Hong Park is a MPP candidate in Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. His research interests include policy analysis and evaluation. At CSDS, he is working on the Air Quality Project, helping to create a user-friendly interactive dashboard that visualizes the aggregated sensor/satellite data and other multiple drivers/predictors of air quality. He received his B.A.s in International Affairs and Political Science from the George Washington University.
Quad Scholar and Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science (2022-23), Data Science Institute (2022), and Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation (2023)
Nikhil is a student at the College majoring in Computational and Applied Mathematics. He is assisting in the development of geospatial analysis tools.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Program Lead, Open Spatial Lab at the Data Science Institute
Susan Paykin is the Program Lead at the Data Science Institute's Open Spatial Lab. She used to work as the Research Manager with the Healthy Regions and Policies Lab at the Center for Spatial Data Science. Her work integrates GIS and spatial analysis with public policy research, with a focus on public health, economic justice, and sustainable food systems. She holds an M.P.P. from UChicago's Harris School of Public Policy.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Noa Perlmutter is a third-year cognitive science undergrad at UChicago. She is part of an interdisciplinary team to customize UC Berkeley's course "Sense & Sensibility & Science" for UChicago in spring 2024. The course lets students experience how they can use scientific thinking to improve individual and collective decisions in a democracy.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Jianzong (Harry) Pi is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Ohio State University. His research interests include applied probability theory, statistical learning, optimization, and causal inference. His Ph.D. research focuses on the fairness and robustness of machine learning algorithms.
Summer Research Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Maya is a Masters in Public Health (MPH) Candidate at UIC. She is completing the masters program with a concentration in Epidemiology. Maya is working on a project at the CSDS examining opioid use disorder in New Jersey.
Research Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Isaac is a fourth-year student in the College majoring in Geography and minoring in Statistics. He is interested in how quantitative spatial analysis can be used to understand and address processes which generate discrimination and inequity.
Postdoctoral Associate, Center for Spatial Data Science
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science, 2018-19
Hamza Rarou holds a PhD in applied economics from the Solvay Business School of the Free University of Brussels and a B.A. and M.A. in Commercial Engineering from the same university. His research is about spatial production networks and their impact on economic development.
Summer Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Anna Rzhetsky is a second year student at the University of Chicago, studying for a B.A. in Computer Science, as well as in the premedical track. Due to her strong interest in emergency medicine, she also works as an EMT in an ambulance service to gain experience in providing quality emergency care.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for Data and Computing, University of Chicago
Jamie is a postdoctoral scholar with the Center for Data and Computing of the University of Chicago. He was previously a postdoc with CSDS and the University's Harris School of Public Policy, and remains a fellow of CSDS. He studies the accessibility of resources in neighborhoods in American cities, using large datasets, graph theory, and some computer vision. He has taught programming and statistics to MPP students at the Harris School.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
c.schiavoni@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Caterina Schiavoni is a PhD student in Econometrics at Maastricht University and Statistics Netherlands. Her research focuses on time series methods for the production of official statistics, and on panel data methods to model air pollutants. Before starting her PhD, she completed an internship in data analysis at the United Nations Refugee Agency. She has a M.Sc. in Econometrics from Maastricht University, and a B.Sc. in Statistics from Sapienza – Università di Roma (Italy).
Data Science Fellow: Build Environments
Clyde Schwab is a recent graduate from the University of Chicago with a BA in Geographical Sciences. He is interested in leveraging spatial data to generate better insight into urban phenomena and more effectively shape public policy using tools such as spatial data modeling, regression analysis, causal inference, and cluster analysis in the fields of public health, housing, and social justice.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Emily Selch is a second-year Master of Public Policy student at the University of Chicago. She is broadly interested in using spatial tools to better understand crime, housing, and opioid use disorder trends. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in International and Global Studies from Middlebury College.
PhD student, Socio-Economic and Statistical Studies, La Sapienza University of Rome
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Renan Serenini is a PhD student at the European PhD in Socio-Economic and Statistical Studies at La Sapienza University of Rome and works at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). His research interest lie in Econometrics, Causal Inference and Public Health. His research includes the identification of spatial spillovers of public health policies in Brazil, the analysis of the spatial distribution of obesity and the use of spatial analysis in causal inference.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Haowen is a masters student in Computational Social Science at the University of Chicago. She previously worked as a research assistant at Argonne and created spatial-temporal animations and analysis products for air quality sensor data. She focuses on improving methodologies for air quality estimations and is researching the impacts of air quality on health and socio-economics.
Social Science Division (SSD) Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Jerry Shi is a student at the University of Chicago's College. As an SSD intern, he is developing Jupyter Notebooks to make code for cleaning social service contracts data more accessible.
Center for Data and Computing RA, Center for Spatial Data Science
Michelle is an incoming Angier B. Duke Scholar at Duke University. She enjoys behavioral economics and econometrics research and loves exploring how these fields shape public policy.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Divij Sinha is currently pursuing an MS in Computational Analysis and Public Policy from the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. He is working on building survey tools for geospatial analysis.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science and Harris School of Public Policy
Dan Snow graduated from the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Masters program. His research focuses on healthcare and spatial accessibility. He also works as a data analyst and project manager at a nonprofit organization on Chicago’s north side.
Website: dfsnow.me
GitHub: github.com/dfsnow
Associate Professor, Department of Demography, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Luciana Soares Luz do Amaral is an Associate Professor in the Department of Demography (Cedeplar/FACE) at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil. Her research interests include demography of education, economic demography, and the intersection between population dynamics and public policy.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Changyao Song is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the School of Government, Peking University. He is also the research assistant of Beijing Development Institute, Peking University. His research interests include producer services and tourism economics. He is currently working on the interaction between producer services and urbanization in China.
Atlas Design & Communications RA
Sinduri is a fourth-year student studying Public Policy, Environmental Studies, and GIS at the College and working towards her Master in Public Policy at the Harris School of Public Policy. She is excited to build on her passion for environmental justice and information accessibility by working on design and communications for the US COVID Atlas project.
Social Science Division (SSD) Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Tiye is a Public Policy student at the University of Chicago with a specialization in Geographic Information Systems. Her work focuses on the relationship between the social determinants of health and the built environment in order to create a business case for considering health in policy outcomes.
Center for Data and Computing RA, Center for Spatial Data Science
R.E. is a rising second-year student at the University of Chicago, studying statistics. He is working on improving gaining spatial insights with GeoDa.
Summer Institute in Social Research Methods Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Caitlyn Tien is a rising third year College student at the University of Chicago, majoring in Economics. She is working on a research project related to computing travel times and spatial access metrics at scale and on helping spatial analysts navigate the methods available in our GeoDa software.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Instructor of Medicine, UChicago Medicine
Dr. Tung’s research focuses on disparities in chronic disease management, with a special interest in race, place, and poverty. She has participated in community-based strategies to improve chronic disease management in East St. Louis, Chinatown New York, and West Providence, in addition to her work on the South Side of Chicago. These experiences have led to a vested interest in addressing the social determinants of health and a commitment to eradicating health disparities. Her current research focuses on two main areas of inquiry. First, Dr. Tung is examining the relationships between race, poverty, and access to healthcare in adults with chronic disease, and has published on topics such as bypassing healthy resources, implicit bias, and retail redlining. Second, Dr. Tung is examining the intersection between community violence and chronic disease, and is applying geospatial analytical tools to bridge the worlds of violence epidemiology and health.
Teaching Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Rodrigo is a student in the Computational Social Science Masters Program at the University of Chicago. He holds a Bachelor in Economics from the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico. Before coming to Chicago, he worked in infrastructure financing.
Summer Institute in Social Research Methods Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Emma is a rising third-year in the college studying Public Policy and Economics. She is working with the CSDS on a project exploring data on business licenses issued in Chicago.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Bibind Vasu is a Master in Science in Environmental Science and Policy (MSESP) candidate at the Harris School of Public Policy. His interests are in sustainable urban development and data science.
Researcher, Center for Spatial Data Science
Larissa Vieira is a geographer with experience in combining spatial analysis and ethnographic research in applied research on transportation, poverty and inequality, housing and health. At CSDS she is analyzing spatial patterns of contract-funded health and human services in relation to where services are needed.
Data Science Fellow: Measuring Accessibility
Rachel Vigil is a rising fourth-year student in the College majoring in Environmental and Urban Studies. She has a particular interest in the intersection of access to transportation and other health and safety metrics and is excited to explore those avenues with HeRoP this summer.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Christian is a College student (class of 2022) with a specialization in environmental and urban studies, biology, and creative writing. He is conducting exploratory spatial analyses of open data concerning police traffic stops and altercation outcomes.
Data Science Fellow: Build Environments
Christian Villanueva is a third-year student in the College majoring in Environmental and Urban Studies and minoring in Biology and Creative writing. He is interested in studying the spatial components of contemporary issues and learning new methods of analysis. In his free time, Christian likes to drink tea and watch terrible movies.
Summer Institute in Social Research Methods Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Jizhou Wang is a rising third-year student in the College, majoring in Economics. He is interested in the application of GIScience in Economics research. He is also interested in Education.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Ryan is a master’s student in the social sciences. He concentrates on quantitative methods and social analysis, and his research area is in labor sociology. Ryan enjoys the computational approach to geographic sciences, and he is particularly interested in visualization of spatial data.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Jionghua Wang is currently a Ph.D. student in the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include spatial social/temporal modeling and land-use optimization. He is also interested in social psychology, public health, and GUI design.
Atlas Spatial Data Science RA
Andrew Warfield is a student in the Master in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (MSCAPP) at the Harris School of Public Policy. Previously, Andrew was a Research Data Analyst for the Center for Geospatial Sciences at the University of California Riverside. He holds a bachelors in Public Policy from UC Riverside.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Thomas is a Political Science Major in the college. He is assisting in the study and analysis of the economic geography of the United States.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Amanda is a M.S. in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (MS-CAPP) candidate at the Harris School of Public Policy. She is currently working on a project to understand the use of public spaces using machine learning.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Doug Williams is a 4th year undergraduate student at UChicagom, double majoring in data science and public policy. He is part of an interdisciplinary team to customize UC Berkeley's course "Sense & Sensibility & Science" for UChicago in spring 2024. The course lets students experience how they can use scientific thinking to improve individual and collective decisions in a democracy.
Fellow, Center for Spatial Data Science
Lecturer in Quantitative Human Geography, University of Bristol
Levi John Wolf, PhD is a Fellow at the Center for Spatial Data Science and a Lecturer in Quantitatve Human Geography at the University of Bristol. He is a quantitative social scientist, using spatial statistics and computation to make sense of US politics, economics, and social dynamics.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Julie Wu is a third-year geographical studies major and computer science minor in the College. She is also involved in TechTeam. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring Chicago neighborhoods, riding trains, and volunteering for Bridgeport's only low power radio station (105.5 FM).
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Driven by her passion for social equity, Fanmei aspires to create a sustainable environment that is conducive to children’s growth and development. Integrating data science and developmental psychology, Fanmei works to inform policymakers with evidence-based research. She also serves as the Co-President at the Harris Student Government.
Research Associate in Geography, Wuhan University
Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Gang Xu is a research associate with the Department of Geography and the Center of Geocomputation for Social Sciences at Wuhan University, China. His research interests include urban land use changes and environmental consequences, urbanization and complex urban systems, and spatial analysis. He is currently applying the theory of complex systems to understand cities undergoing rapid urbanization, including urban land, air quality, and urban health.
Mansueto Institute Postdoctoral Fellow & Center for Spatial Data Science Postdoctoral Scholar
Wenfei Xu is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mansueto Institute and the Center for Spatial Data Science with affiliation at the University of Chicago Department of Sociology. Her research topics include social-spatial stratification, segregation, race and ethnicity, computational methods, and neighborhood change in the United States. Her work ranges from an interest in the historical legacies of structural housing discrimination and its contemporary spatial-temporal manifestations to exploring the uses of big data in characterizing human activity for urban social science research. She received her PhD in urban planning at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University and holds dual Masters in Urban Planning and Architecture from MIT and a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago.
Summer Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Haipeng is a first-year MSc in Analytics student at Physical Science Division. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS in Statistics and Economics. His previous research targets in environmental statistics modeling. He is interested in applying CS/DS techniques in geospatial world and public health.
Intern, Center for Spatial Data Science
Breanna is an upcoming junior at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. She is working with Dr. Marynia Kolak this summer on social determinants of health.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Jiaqi Yang (Stephanie) is a first-year master student in the Computational Analysis and Public Policy program at UChicago. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Columbia University. Her research interests include interactive data visualization, machine learning algorithms, and applications of computational techniques in the public sector.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Chenhao Yang is currently a first tear master student in computer science at UChicago. Prior to joining UChicago, he received his bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University in software engineering. He used to work at Microsoft Research Asia.
Center for Data and Computing RA, Center for Spatial Data Science
Eric is a rising high school junior at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. He has experience with web development and is looking forward to helping bring spatial data science to new platforms.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Chen Zeng is an Associate Professor in Huazhong Agricultural University in China. She is also a joint postdoc between the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her main research areas are urban planning, land use planning, GIS and remote sensing. She earned her PhD and Bachelor degrees at Wuhan University in 2013 and 2008, respectively. She was a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge, UK from 2011-2012.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Calvin is a student in the College. He majors in Economics with a specialization in Data Science. Expanding upon his interest in economic geography, he will assist in the empirical analysis of the expression of the new economic geography in the U.S.
Research Assistant, Center for Spatial Data Science
Hang Zhang is a second-year MSc student in GIS at the Key Research Institute of Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development at Henan University in the Henan Province of China. His core research interests include CyberGIS and crowdsourcing, R and Python programming, and the application of geographical data science to economic geography.
Data Engineering Fellow: Spatial Infrastructures
Jinfei Zhu is a student in the Master of Arts Program in Computational Social Science (MAPSS) at the University of Chicago. Her recent research interests include analyzing and visualizing COVID-19 geospatial data and optimizing data solutions for transferring and utilizing time-series geospatial data.
Jinfei will work with HeRoP lab engineers on developing solutions for the US COVID Atlas, including enabling in-browser geospatial analytics and optimizing data management, compression, and loading processes.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Ferda Esin Gülel is an assistant professor of Statistics at the Econometrics Department at Pamukkale University, Turkey. She defended her Ph.D. thesis in 2014 and is working on applied statistics and spatial modeling. She was a visiting scholar at Syracuse University, NY in 2011-2012 with Prof. Badi Baltagi and at Kean University, NJ with Prof. Thomas Walsh.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Anaïs Ladoy is finishing a Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Her research interests involve spatial analysis and epidemiology. She is currently visiting the Center for Spatial Data Science to complete her master's thesis with an analysis of Array of Things and other sensor data, including the spatial interpolation of air quality data.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Xindian Li is a third-year masters student in the Department of Construction Management at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Her research interests include housing policy and spatial hedonic modeling. She is currently working on the development and application of a spatio-temporal housing price index in Beijing.
Visiting Scholar, Center for Spatial Data Science
Lu Zhou is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. She is also a part-time journalist, covering the policy of Chinese land and housing markets. Her research interest is how the land rights institutions in China affect the land market, economic development and inclusive urbanization. Her thesis investigates Transferable Development Rights (TDRs) in Chongqing, China. TDRs is a pilot program that shifts the land development quota system from central planning to market allocation.
