Big Data, CyberGIS, and Geospatial Data Science
Biography
Shaowen Wang is a Professor of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he is named a Centennial Scholar. He is also Associate Director
of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) for CyberGIS, and Founding Director of UIUC’s CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies. He was a visiting scholar at Lund University sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2006 and NCSA Fellow in 2007 and received the NSF CAREER Award in 2009. He received his BS in Computer Engineering from Tianjin University in 1995, MS in
Geography from Peking University in 1998, and MS of Computer Science and Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Iowa in 2002 and 2004 respectively.
His research and teaching interests include geographic information science and systems (GIS), advanced cyberinfrastructure and cyberGIS, complex environmental and geospatial problems, computational and data sciences, high-performance parallel and distributed computing, and spatial analysis and modeling. He has served as the principal investigator of several multi-institution NSF projects for advancing cyberGIS and related scientific problem-solving.
He has published many peer-reviewed papers including articles in more than 20 journals. He is a past President of the International Association of Chinese Professionals in Geographic Information Sciences (CPGIS), and also served as the Chair of CPGIS Board. He served on the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) Board of Directors from 2009 to 2012, and currently is President-Elect of UCGIS. He is a current member of the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources of the U.S. National Academies.
http://www.cigi.illinois.edu/shaowen
Abstract
CyberGIS represents an interdisciplinary field combining advanced cyberinfrastructure and e-science, geographic information science and systems (GIS), spatial analysis and modeling, and a number of geospatial domains (e.g., emergency management, public health, and smart cities) to enable broad scientific and technological advances. It has also emerged as new-generation GIS based on holistic integration of high-performance and distributed computing, data-driven knowledge discovery, visualization, and visual analytics, and collaborative problem-solving and decision-making capabilities. The growing importance of cyberGIS is reflected by increasing calls for solutions to bridge the significant digital divide between advanced cyberinfrastructure and geospatial communities in the big data era. This presentation discusses challenges and opportunities for cyberGIS and geospatial data science to empower geospatial discovery and innovation through interdisciplinary approaches.
