We are proud to announce that Dr. Lei Zou has been selected as a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Gulf Research Program Early Career Research Fellow . He will be joining the Human Health and Community Resilience Track . This prestigious fellowship supports emerging scientific leaders as they take on risks and pursue nontraditional research that advances science at the intersection of human health, environmental resources, and offshore energy s

Congratulations to Joynal Abedin 🌎 on successfully completing his Ph.D. from Texas A&M Department of Geography! In Fall 2025, Joynal has joined the Department of Geography at Ohio University as an Assistant Professor of Instruction 🎉 Dr. Lei Zou hooding Dr. Joynal Abedin during the graduation ceremony Dr. Lei Zou (left) and Dr. Joynal Abedin (right) at the Fall 2025 Texas A&M Commencement Ceremony Joynal is the fourth Ph.D. graduate from the GEAR Lab. With a deep commitmen

We are delighted to share that Yifan Yang  has been awarded the Environment and Sustainability Graduate Fellow Award  for his research proposal, “Bridging the Gap from Remote Sensing to Street View: Human-Centered Visual Perception for Environmental Sustainability.” Note:  The illustration above was generated using AI and is intended solely for visual communication and promotional purposes for this post. This fellowship recognizes Yifan’s innovative vision in connecting satel

We are excited to announce that Mingzheng Yang  has won 🥇 First Place  in the 2025 GIS Day Graduate Student Paper Competition  with his outstanding presentation, “Biological Rhythm Through the Lens of GIScience: Opportunities and Applications.” His work showcases the innovative spirit and expanding possibilities of GIScience, offering fresh insights into biological rhythms through geospatial analysis. 🌍✨ Biological Rhythm Through the Lens of GIScience – GIS Day 2025 Present

We are pleased to share a new peer-reviewed publication in which GEAR Lab member Dr. Lei Zou  contributed as a co-author: 🎯 “Fine-tuned large language models for natech analytics: Evidence from two decades of Texas chemical emission incidents” 🔍 Study Overview Natural-hazard-triggered technological accidents ( Natechs ) remain a significant yet under-examined risk for chemical process industries. Although decades of incident records exist, they are largely unstructured  and

We are thrilled to share that Dr. Bing Zhou  (lead author), Dr. Lei Zou , Mingzheng Yang , Binbin Lin , Debayan Mandal , Joynal Abedin , Heng Cai , Shuiwang Ji , Andrew Klein , and Hao Tian  have published a new paper: 🎯 “Rapid Disaster Response and Damage Estimation with Social Media and Pretrained Large Language Models: Insights from Multiple Hurricanes” 🔍 Study Overview This study explores how social media , especially X (formerly Twitter) , can support fast and reliab

The GEAR Lab is delighted to share that Joynal Abedin successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Monday, October 20th, 2025. His dissertation, “ Modeling the Dynamics of Climatic and Environmental Hazard Risks by Leveraging Geospatial Data Science ,” sits at the intersection of urban geography, disaster resilience, and sustainable planning. His research quantitatively assessed multi-scale community exposure and risk to flooding and air pollution in both developing and d

The GEAR Lab at Texas A&M University was delighted to host Dr. Hui Luan , a spatial epidemiologist and spatial data scientist from UT Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW), for an invited talk focusing on uncertainty in spatiotemporal statistical modeling . His visit sparked vibrant discussions on cutting-edge spatial health research and methodological innovation. Dr. Luan’s talk provided an in-depth look at how uncertainty influences the analysis and interpretation of spatiotem

On November 10, 2025, the Department of Geography at Texas A&M University had the great honor of hosting Dr. Michael F. Goodchild, Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. During his visit, Dr. Goodchild engaged in stimulating discussions with faculty and graduate students, focusing on topics such as Cartography, Human-environment interactions, and Spatial representation. His

We are delighted to share that Rohan has been selected as the Communication Director for the AAG Specialty Group on Geographic...

On September 12-14, 2025, Dr. Lei Zou was invited to deliver a featured talk at the ISU-NISS Conference on AI and Statistics , held at...

We are excited to welcome Mitch  and Ritika , who joined GEAR Lab as senior undergraduates at Texas A&M University this year! 🎉 Mitch...

We are delighted to share that Mingzheng Yang  has successfully passed his Ph.D. proposal defense  and is now officially a Ph.D....

The GEAR Lab had a remarkable presence at the International Cartographic Conference (ICC) 2025  in Vancouver, Canada. Our members...

We are excited to welcome Jasper , who joined GEAR lab this Fall 2025! 🎉 Zongrong (Jasper) Li is a Ph.D. student in Geography at Texas...

We are thrilled to share that Yifan Yang  (lead author) and Dr. Lei Zou , along with Bing Zhou, Daoyang Li, Binbin Lin, Joynal Abedin,...

We are pleased to share a new publication co-authored by Bing Zhou , Binbin Lin , Lei Zou , Mingzheng Yang , Hao Tian , and Heng Cai ,...

We are excited to announce that Joynal Abedin , Ph.D. candidate in the GEAR Lab at Texas A&M, has been awarded the prestigious 2025 CaGIS...

We are thrilled to share that Dr. Bing Zhou , a former Ph.D. graduate  from the GEAR Lab, will be joining the University of Tennessee,...

Dr. Lei Zou  has co-authored a new paper titled “ Toward Coastal Infrastructure Resiliency: An AI-Enabled Decision Support Framework for...

Dr. Lei Zou  was invited to give a talk at the Japan Geoscience Union (JpGU) Conference , presenting on “ Geospatial Big Data and AI for...

We’re excited to share that Yifan Yang , a Ph.D. student in the GEAR Lab, has been selected as one of the 2025–2026 Data Science Student...

We are delighted to share that Joynal Abedin , a Ph.D. candidate in the GEAR Lab, has been awarded the 2025 Excellence in Research Award...

We are excited to announce that Dr. Lei Zou  has co-authored a new paper titled “ Urban Climate Adaptation and REsilience (U-CARE) in...

The GEAR Lab is thrilled to celebrate the graduation of Dr. Binbin Lin , who successfully earned her Ph.D. in Geography from Texas A&M...

We are proud to share that Joynal Abedin , a GEAR Lab member and Ph.D. candidate in Geography at Texas A&M, earned first place  in the...

We are thrilled to share that Dr. Binbin Lin  has been honored with the prestigious 2025 Distinguished Dissertation Award  from the Texas...

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Lei Zou  has been honored with the 2025 Emerging Scholar Award  by the Spatial Analysis and Modeling...

We are proud to share that Yifan Yang , a first-year Ph.D. student in the GEAR Lab, and Zongrong (Jasper) Li , an incoming Ph.D. student...

On March 24-28, 2025, GEAR Lab members attended the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers at Detroit, Michigan....

Dr. Lei Zou was invited to deliver a talk at the TAMIDS Ethical and Explainable GeoAI Workshop , held on February 27, 2025, at Texas A&M...

Dr. Lei Zou recently delivered an invited talk at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences on " Expect the Unexpected: Geospatial Data...