Description
The Symposium on Spatial AI and Data Science: Frontiers and Applications highlights how rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science are transforming geographic research and practice. The symposium will explore foundational theories, emerging concepts, advanced methods, and cutting-edge tools that harness cyberGIS (cyber-based geographic information science and systems) and spatial AI and data science to expand the frontiers of geographic knowledge and address pressing global challenges such as aging infrastructure, biodiversity loss, and food and water insecurity. By fostering integration across AI, data science, cyberGIS, spatial analytics, and many related application domains, the symposium seeks to advance methodological frontiers, stimulate theoretical thinking, and promote interdisciplinary collaboration that drives new discovery and innovation in geography and related fields. The symposium is sponsored by the Institute for Geospatial Understanding through an Integrative Discovery Environment (I-GUIDE, https://i-guide.io), funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
The Symposium on Spatial AI and Data Science: Frontiers and Applications is built on the successes of previous Symposia focused on cyberGIS and geospatial data science at AAG annual meetings since 2011. A suite of paper/panel sessions and workshops will address cutting-edge advances of cyberGIS, spatial AI and data science, and data-intensive geospatial understanding derived from spatial and spatiotemporal data synthesis. The topical themes of the symposium will include, but are not limited to, frontiers of cyberGIS and spatial AI and data science, high-performance computing approaches to geographic problem solving, multiscale mapping and spatial analysis, geospatial approaches to resilience and sustainability challenges enabled by cyberGIS and spatial AI and data science, and challenges and opportunities of education and workforce development in spatial AI and data science.
Sponsorship
Cyberinfrastructure Specialty Group (CISG), Geographic Information Science and Systems (GISS) Specialty Group, Spatial Analysis and Modeling (SAM) Specialty Group, etc.
Panel Sessions (Incomplete)
- Building Future-ready Cyberinfrastructure for Spatial AI and Data Science: Innovations and Applications
- Convergence Curriculum for Spatial AI and Data Science
- Frontiers of CyberGIS and Spatial AI & Data Science
- I-GUIDE Platform
- Spatial AI and Data Science for Advancing Geographic Science
- UCGIS Humans and Geospatial AI Book Club: Exploring Human Experience, Ethics, and Creativity
Paper Sessions (Incomplete)
- Advancing Agricultural Monitoring through Remote Sensing
- Challenges and Opportunities of Spatial Accessibility
- GeoAI and Large Language Models: Tools, Techniques, and Sustainable Applications
- GeoAI for Multi-source Geospatial Data Fusion and Analysis
- Harnessing Geospatial Big Data for Urban Studies
- Rethinking the Design and Application of Spatial Decision Support Systems
Workshops (Incomplete)
- CyberTraining for AI-powered Disaster Management
- I-GUIDE Platform
If you are interested in organizing any sessions or panels as part of the Symposium, please contact Wei Hu at weih9@illinois.edu. To present a paper in any of the Symposium sessions, please register and submit your abstract online, and email your presenter identification number (PIN), paper title, and abstract to Wen Zhou via wz53@illinois.edu by the AAG submission deadline (November 30, 2025). We look forward to your submissions and participation!
Chairs
- Shaowen Wang, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
- Courtney Flint, Utah State University
- Fangzheng Lyu, Virginia Tech
- Alexander Michels, University of Texas at Dallas
- Zhe Zhang, Texas A&M University
Organizers
- Wei Hu, UIUC
- Wen Zhou, UIUC
Organizing Committee
- Li An, Auburn University
- Luc Anselin, University of Chicago
- Marc Armstrong, the University of Iowa
- Peter Atkinson, Lancaster University
- David Bennett, the University of Iowa
- Budhendra L. Bhaduri, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Christopher Brunsdon, Maynooth University
- Guofeng Cao, University of Colorado, Boulder
- Xiang Chen, University of Connecticut
- Peter Darch, UIUC
- Zhenhong Du, Zhejiang University
- Chen-Chieh Feng, National University of Singapore
- A. Stewart Fotheringham, Florida State University
- Jing Gao, University of Delaware
- Song Gao, University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Michael Goodchild, University of California, Santa Barbara
- Joseph Holler, Middlebury College
- Yingjie Hu, University at Buffalo
- Xiao Huang, Emory University
- Devika Jain, Harvard University
- Krzysztof Janowicz, University of Vienna
- Nattapon Jaroenchai, UIUC
- Myeonghun Jeong, Chosun University
- Jeon-Young Kang, Kyung Hee University
- Yuhao Kang, University of Texas at Austin
- Peter Kedron, University of California, Santa Barbara
- Mei-Po Kwan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Nina Lam, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Gary Langham, American Association of Geographers
- Wenwen Li, Arizona State University
- Ziqi Li, Florida State University
- Zhenlong Li, Penn State University
- Yue Lin, UIUC
- Gengchen Mai, University of Texas at Austin
- Steven Manson, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- Harvey Miller, The Ohio State University
- Trisalyn Nelson, University of California, Santa Barbara
- Shawn Newsam, University of California, Merced
- Anand Padmanabhan, UIUC
- Jinwoo Park, Kyung Hee University
- Ethan Shavers, United States Geological Survey
- Shih-Lung Shaw, University of Tennessee Knoxville
- Xun Shi, Dartmouth College
- Renee Sieber, McGill University
- Diana Sinton, University Consortium for Geographic Information Science
- Conghe Song, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Lawrence Stanislawski, United States Geological Survey
- Kathleen Stewart, University of Maryland
- Daniel Sui, Virginia Tech
- Wenwu Tang, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
- Ming-Hsiang (Ming) Tsou, San Diego State University
- Monica Wachowicz, the University of New Brunswick
- Zhaonan Wang, New York University, Shanghai
- John Wilson, University of Southern California
- Ningchuan Xiao, The Ohio State University
- Chaowei (Phil) Yang, George Mason University
- Xinyue Ye, University of Alabama
- May Yuan, University of Texas at Dallas
- Chuanrong Zhang, University of Connecticut
- Di Zhu, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- Lei Zou, Texas A&M University
- Bo Zhao, University of Washington, Seattle