Prof. Yuan Yuan is Deputy Director of the Urbanization Research Institute, School of Geography and Planning at Sun Yat-sen University. Prof. Yuan got her bachelor and master's degree in School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University, and got her PhD in School of Geography and Planning at Sun Yat-sen University. She did her post-doctoral research at School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University in the UK. She was a visiting scholar at School of Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2023 and at Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2016. Prof. Yuan's research interests are social space under rapid urbanization, urban poverty and healthy city.
She has been the principal investigator of Fourteen research projects funded by National Nature Science Foundation of China, Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province, etc. She has chaired and participated in more than 30 urban rural planning projects. She was awarded the title of "Young Changjiang Scholar" by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. Dr. Xi Chen earned his Ph.D. in Human Geography from the School of Geography and Planning at Sun Yat-sen University in 2026. His research interests encompass urban planning and urban sustainability modeling, with a particular focus on global informal settlements and their associated environmental changes.
Dr. Yimin Chen is a Professor and Ph.D. supervisor at the School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, where he serves as the Chair of the Department of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Engineering. His research interests include urban big data computing, urban applications with GeoAI, and modeling for urban sustainable development. He has led multiple projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province. Professor CHEN has received support through the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars and the Guangdong Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. He has published 39 SCI/SSCI papers as the first or corresponding author in renowned international geographical journals.
Additionally, he was selected as Clarivate's Highly Cited Researcher for four consecutive years (2021-2024) and was also named in the 2023 World's Top 2% Scientists List by Stanford University. Xiaoping Liu is a professor of the School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, a PhD supervisor, who has won the 100 excellent PhD thesis, the program for New Century Excellent Talents in the University of Ministry of Education of China, National Youth Top-notch Talent Support Program, the National Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China, the Cheung Kong Scholars Program for Young Scholars from the Ministry of Education of China, National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, the Guangdong Province Natural Science Award, and the Tenth National Award of Geographical Science for Younger Scholars. He is also one of the chief scientists of the Marine Sustainable Development Group of the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai). Prof. WU Zhiqiang is Member of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Member of German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), Member of Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science and Honorary Fellow of American Institute of Architects (Hon. FAIA).