Faculty Profile for Dr. Yihong Yuan

profile photo for Dr. Yihong Yuan
Dr. Yihong Yuan
Associate Professor — Dept of Geography & Environmntl Studies
ELA 2203
phone: (512) 245-3208

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Dr. Yihong Yuan received her Ph.D. in Geography (2013) and M.A. in Statistics (2013) from the University of California, Santa Barbara, B.S in Geographic Information System (2009) from Peking University, Beijing. She is currently Assistant Professor of Geography at Texas State University (Texas State). Before joining Texas State, she worked as a visiting researcher at ETH Zurich and a senior data scientist in the private sector. Her research interests include (but are not limited to) big data analytics, human mobility modeling, and travel behavior analysis. She is particularly interested in extracting human activity patterns from multiple data sources such as telecommunication devices and location-based social media (LBSM). She has published more than 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. She also serves as an expert reviewer for multiple academic journals such as Nature (human behavior), Transactions in GIS; Cartography and Geographic Information Science; International Journal of Geographic Information Science, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems and etc.

Selected Scholarly/Creative Work

  • Yang, M., Yuan, Y., & Zhan, F. B. (2023). Explore Urban Interactions based on Floating Car Data – A Case Study of Chengdu, China. Annals of GIS. https://doi.org/10.1080/19475683.2023.2166109
  • Yang, M., Yuan, Y., & Zhan, B. F. (2023). Urban Interactions based on Floating Car Data – A Case Study of Chengdu, China. Annals of GIS, 29(1), 37–53.
  • Bin Asad, K. M., & Yuan, Y. (2023). The Impact of Scale on Extracting Urban Mobility Patterns Using Texture Analysis. Computational Urban Science, 3, Article #33.
  • Yuan, Y., & Wylie, A. G. (2023). Exploring the Spatio-temporal Patterns of Urban Fire Incidents. In The 31st International Cartographic Conference (Vol. 6,  Article #289). Copernicus Publications.
  • Xing, X., Yuan, Y., Huang, Z., Peng, X., Zhao, P., & Liu, Y. (2022). Flow trace: A novel representation of intra-urban movement dynamics. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 96, 101832.

Selected Awards

  • Award / Honor Recipient: Best Paper for Map Use/Information Graphics, Applied Geography Conference. 2022
  • Award / Honor Nominee: Top 20 Finalist, Global Young Scientist in GIScience, The 3rd Global Young Scientist Forum. 2022
  • Award / Honor Recipient: College of Liberal Arts Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, Texas State University. 2021
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Achievement in GIS Award, Society for Geographic Information Science. 2020
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Teaching Award of Honor, Texas State University. 2020

Selected Grants

  • Yuan, Yihong (Principal). Service-learning Mini-Grant, Service Learning Excellence Program, Texas State University, $300. (Funded: 2016). Grant.
  • Yuan, Yihong (Principal). Characterizing Human Mobility from Mobile Phone Usage, Graduate Division Dissertation Fellowship, UC Santa Barbara, Institutional (Higher Ed), $6667. (Funded: 2013). Grant.
  • Yuan, Yihong (Principal), Wang, Feng (Co-Principal). Modeling the Changes in Urban Mobility Patterns during COVID-19, Texas State Center for Analytics and Data Science, Texas State University, $6000. (Submitted: December 2023, Funded: January 2024 - January 2025). Grant.
  • Summers, Lucia (Principal), Yuan, Yihong (Co-Principal). Can hotspot policing reduce emergency response times while preventing crime? Using machine learning to improve the effectiveness of directed police patrol, Texas State University, Texas State University, $7966.18. (Submitted: December 22, 2023). Grant.
  • Yuan, Yihong (Principal), Jensen, Jennifer (Co-Principal). Developing a Web Mapping System for Election Precinct Search, Comal County Democrats, Municipal, $9989. (Submitted: April 2023, Funded: June 2023 - August 2024). Grant.

Selected Service Activities

Member
Establishing a New Data Science Center Work Group
2022-Present
Reviewer / Referee
International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology
2022-Present
Reviewer / Referee
International Journal of Digital Earth
2021-Present
Editorial Review Board Member
Frontiers in Sustainable Cities
2020-Present
Reviewer / Referee
Urban Remote Sensing
2020-Present