I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at Texas A&M University and a member of the GIScience for Resilience (GIResilience) Lab, supervised by Dr. Heng Cai. My research explores urban human dynamics, human–environment interactions, and the development of GeoAI methods to understand how people respond to environmental and climatic stressors.

My work integrates multi-source sensing data, including mobile phone mobility traces, ambient seismic noise, distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), and remote-sensing products, to reveal fine-grained patterns of human behavior, urban activity rhythms, and resilience during extreme events such as heatwaves and winter storms. I aim to bridge large-scale spatial analytics with real-world applications that support resilient, equitable, and climate-adaptive urban futures.

Across my projects, I am passionate about:

Developing computational approaches to quantify human activity and urban adaptation
Leveraging AI and spatial modeling to uncover hidden behavioral patterns
Translating complex datasets into actionable insights for climate resilience and urban planning
Building interdisciplinary collaborations across geography, data science, and geophysics

Urban Social Sensing Framework

Outside of research, I enjoy 🥾 hiking, 🏊 swimming, and 📷 photography.

🔥 News

2026.02.11 — Received AAG International Geographic Information Fund (IGIF) Student Paper Award
2025.10.17 — Successfully passed my Ph.D. preliminary exam at Texas A&M University.

📝 Publications

Journal Articles

JEMA 2024

Unveiling community adaptations to extreme heat events using mobile phone location data

Hao Tian, Heng Cai, Leiqiu Hu, Yi Qiang, Bing Zhou, Mingzheng Yang, Binbin Lin
Journal of Environmental Management, 2024, Vol. 366: 121665.

Uses large-scale mobile phone location data to measure community-level adaptations to extreme heat
Proposes new behavioral resilience indices and interpretable spatial patterns

CEUS 2025 From Seismic Signals to Urban Sensing: Leveraging Ambient Seismic Noise to Sense Human Activity Disruptions in Extreme Weather Events
Hao Tian, Cai H, Chen X, Ahmad MG, Arther L.
Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 2025. (Under Review)
IJDRR 2025 Quantifying Healthcare Accessibility Disruptions Using Mobile Phone Location Data During Disasters: A Case Study of Hurricane Beryl
Lin B, Cai H, Tian H, Fu D, D Palash, Sumiya NN, Yin Z.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2025. (Under Review)
Applied Geography 2025 Predicting Healthcare System Visitation Flow by Integrating Hospital Attributes and Population Socioeconomics with Human Mobility Data
Lin B, Zou L, Cai H, Tian H.
Applied Geography, 2025. (Under Review)
AAAG 2025 Rapid Disaster Response and Damage Estimation with Social Media and Pretrained Large Language Models: Insights from Multiple Hurricanes
Zhou B, Zou L, Yang M, Lin B, Mandal D, Abedin J, Cai H, Ji S, Klein A, Tian H.
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2025, 1-23.
Environmental Research 2021 Effects of high-frequency temperature variabilities on the morbidity of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Evidence in 21 cities of Guangdong, South China
Hao Tian, Yumin Zhou, Zihui Wang, Xiaoliang Huang, Erjia Ge, Sijia Wu, Peng Wang, Xuelin Tong, Pixin Ran, Ming Luo.
Environmental Research, 2021, 201(1): 111544.
Urban Climate 2021 Urbanization contribution to human perceived temperature changes in major urban agglomerations of China
Peng Wang, Ming Luo, Weilin Liao, Yong Xu, Sijia Wu, Xuelin Tong, Hao Tian, Feng Xu, Yu Han.
Urban Climate, 2021, 38(4): 100910.
STOTEN 2021 Urbanization-driven increases in summertime compound heat extremes across China
Sijia Wu, Peng Wang, Xuelin Tong, Hao Tian, Yongquan Zhao, Ming Luo.
Science of The Total Environment, 2021, 799: 149166.
Frontiers in Earth Science 2021 Increasing Compound Heat and Precipitation Extremes Elevated by Urbanization in South China
Sijia Wu, Ting On Chan, Wei Zhang, Guicai Ning, Peng Wang, Xuelin Tong, Feng Xu, Hao Tian, Yu Han, Yongquan Zhao, Ming Luo.
Frontiers in Earth Science, 2021, 9(475): 636777.
Urban Climate 2020 Estimating PM2.5 from multisource data: A comparison of different machine learning models in the Pearl River Delta of China
Hao Tian, Yongquan Zhao, Ming Luo, Qingqing He, Yu Han, Zhaoliang Zeng.
Urban Climate, 2020, 35(3): 100740.

Book Chapters

Springer 2025 Zhou, B., Lin, B., Zou, L., Yang, M., Tian, H., & Cai, H. (2025).
Integrating natural language processing in human geography.
In X. Huang, S. Wang, J. Wilson, & P. Kedron (Eds.), GeoAI and Human Geography: The Dawn of a New Spatial Intelligence Era (pp. 43–61). Springer Nature Switzerland.
Routledge 2024 Li, X., Zhang, Y., Li, D., Cai, H., & Tian, H. (2024).
Spatiotemporal Visitor Characterization through SafeGraph Data Analysis.
In Contemporary Landscape Performance Methods and Techniques (pp. 153–165). Routledge.

🎖 Honors and Awards

2026 AAG International Geographic Information Fund (IGIF) Student Paper Award ($600)
2025 International Cartographic Association (ICA) Scholarship ($450)
2025 CaGIS International Conference Grant ($2100)
2024 2nd Place, AAG GISS-SG Student Paper Competition ($450)
2024 AAG SAM-SG Student Travel Award ($250)
2023 Texas GIS Day Graduate Student Research Competition Awardee ($150)
2019 & 2020 Scholarship, Sun Yat-Sen University

📖 Educations

Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
Ph.D. in Geography, 2023 – 2027 (expected)
Department of Geography
Supervisor: Dr. Heng Cai
Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
M.Eng. in Engineering (Surveying and Mapping), 2019 – 2021
School of Geography and Planning
Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
B.S. in Geographic Information Science, 2015 – 2019
School of Geo-Science and Technology

🎤 Talks & Presentations

2026.03 Invited Presentation
Can Seismic Signals Decode Human Behavior? Toward a Data-Driven Understanding of Human Dynamics.
TAMIDS Ambassador Seminar, Texas A&M Institute of Data Science, College Station, TX, U.S.A.
2025.11 Invited Presentation
Integrating Social and Seismic Sensing: Multi-Source Insights into Urban Human Dynamics.
Texas GIS Day, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, U.S.A.
2025.11 Invited Presentation
Integrating Social and Seismic Sensing: Multi-Source Insights into Urban Human Dynamics.
Fall 2025 Geography Colloquium, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, U.S.A.
2025.08 Oral Presentation
Disproportionate Heat Adaptation: Multi-Scale Evidence of Unequal Mobility Responses to Extreme Heat.
International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2025), Vancouver, BC, Canada.
2025.03 Oral Presentation
Human responses to extreme heat through the lens of human mobility: A multiple-scales study across the United States.
AAG 2025, Detroit, MI, U.S.A.
2024.04 Oral Presentation
Unveiling Community Adaptations to Extreme Heat Events Using Mobile Phone Location Data.
AAG 2024 GISS-SG Student Paper Competition, Honolulu, HI, U.S.A.
2024.01 Oral Presentation
Case Study: Detection of heat waves and calculating heat index using meteorological data.
Spring 2024 Spatiotemporal Analysis Workshop, Spatial Data Lab (SDL), Harvard CGA.
2023.12 Oral Presentation
Unveiling Human Mobility Dynamics during Heat Waves Using Mobile Phone Data in the Houston Metropolitan Area.
Texas GIS Day Student Competition, College Station, TX, U.S.A.
2023.10 Oral Presentation
Unveiling Disparate Community Adaptations to Heat Extremes Using Mobile Phone Location Data.
Urban Climate Solutions Workshop, College Station, TX, U.S.A.
2020.12 Oral Presentation
Assessing the effects of temperature on COPD admissions in Guangzhou based on a distributed lagged non-linear model.
Urban Health 2020 Symposium, Guangzhou, China.

📖 Academic Services

Conference Services

Chair · AAG 2026
Session: GISER Symposium: Sensing Urban Human Dynamics Through Multi-Source Insights (Part I & II)
American Association of Geographers (AAG 2026), 17–21 Mar 2026, San Francisco, USA.
(Co-organized with Dr. Heng Cai)
Chair · ICC 2025
Session: Cartography in Early Warning and Crisis Management
International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2025), 18–22 Aug 2025, Vancouver, Canada.
Chair · AAG 2025
Session: Geospatial Data Science to Enhance Community Resilience to Urban Environmental Hazards
American Association of Geographers (AAG 2025), 23–28 Mar 2025, Detroit, USA.
(Co-organized with Dr. Heng Cai)
Chair · AAG 2024
Session: Symposium on Community Resilience Research: Geospatial Data Science to Enhance Community Resilience to Urban Environmental Hazards
AAG 2024, 16–20 Apr 2024, Honolulu, USA.
(Co-organized with Dr. Heng Cai)
Co-Chair · AAG 2024
Session: Symposium on Community Resilience Research: Data-Driven Approaches for Extreme Heat, Health, and Resilience
AAG 2024, 16–20 Apr 2024, Honolulu, USA.
(Co-organized with Cong Ma)