Faculty Profiles

Colleges and Departments

Dr. Yihong Yuan

  • Professor - Dept of Geography & Environmntl Studies

Biography and expertise

Ph.D. in Geography (Geographic Information Science), University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, 2013
(Specialization: Big data analytics, human mobility modeling, spatio-temporal data mining, and knowledge discovery)

M.S. in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2025

M.A. in Statistics, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, 2013

B.S. in Geographic Information System, Peking University, China, 2009

Education

Doctorate Degree

PhD in Geography

Univ of California, Santa Barbara, 2013

Master's Degree

MS in Computer Science

Georgia Institute of Technology, 2025

Master's Degree

MA in Statistics

Univ of California, Santa Barbara, 2013

Bachelor's Degree

BS in Geographical Information Systems

Peking University, 2009

Teaching Interests

Research Interests

Patents

  • “Place name searching method and system based on context.” Y. Liu, Y. Zhang, R. Li, Yihong Yuan, C. Chen, Y. Gao. #CN101957819B.
    Date applied: 07/21/2009, Date awarded: 07/18/2012
  • Luo, Xiaohua (Principal), Wang, Feng (Co-Principal), Yuan, Yihong (Co-Principal), Li, Liang. Summer Transportation Camp (formerly National Summer Transportation Institute), Federal Highway Administration, Federal, $65000. (Submitted: September 2025, Funded: October 2025 - September 2026). Grant.
  • Yuan, Yihong (Principal). Advancing Spatial Analytical Methods through the Integration of Explainable Machine Learning, College of Liberal Arts Seed Grant, Texas State University, $3000. (Submitted: November 2024, Funded: December 2024 - December 2025). Grant.
  • Luo, Xiaohua (Principal), Wang, Feng (Co-Principal), Yuan, Yihong (Co-Principal). National Summer Transportation Institute, Federal Highway Administration, Federal, $64760. (Submitted: September 2024, Funded: December 2024 - September 2025). Grant.
  • Yuan, Yihong (Principal), Wang, Feng (Co-Principal). Modeling the Changes in Urban Mobility Patterns during COVID-19, Texas State Center for Analytics and Data Science, Texas State University, $6000. (Submitted: December 2023, Funded: January 2024 - February 2025). Grant.
  • Yuan, Yihong (Principal), Jensen, Jennifer (Co-Principal). Developing a Web Mapping System for Election Precinct Search, Comal County Democrats, Private / Foundation / Corporate, $9989. (Submitted: April 2023, Funded: June 2023 - November 2024). Grant.
View all grants
  • Yuan, Y., Wang, P., McKenzie, G., Sun, M., Xu, Y., & Verma, P. (2025). Human mobility in the post-pandemic world. In Urban Human Mobility-Practices, Analytics, and Strategies for Smart Cities (pp. 221–235). CRC Press.
  • Yuan, Y., Wang, P., & Summers, L. (2025). Comparing the spatio-temporal patterns of crime incidents based on time series analysis: a case study of Austin, Texas (Vol. 7–18, pp. 1–7). https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-proc-7-18-2025, 2025
  • Yuan, Y., & Wylie, A. G. (2024). Comparing machine learning and time series approaches in predictive modeling of urban fire incidents: a case study of Austin, Texas. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 13.
  • Wang, P., & Yuan, Y. (2024). Analyzing key factors influencing human mobility before and during COVID-19 with explainable machine learning. Transactions in GIS, 29(1), e13271.
  • Bobo, R. T., Chow, T. K. E., & Yuan, Y. (2024). Floor-level occupancy estimation of a multi-story building using coarse Wi-Fi data. Papers in Applied Geography, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/23754931.2024.2407069
View all scholarly/creative works
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Best Paper for Map Use/Information Graphics, Applied Geography Conference. 2022
  • Award / Honor Nominee: Top 20 Finalist, Global Young Scientist in GIScience, The 3rd Global Young Scientist Forum. 2022
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, College of Liberal Arts, Texas State University. 2021
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Achievement in GIS Award, Society for Geographic Information Science. 2020
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Richard Wayne Simmons Geography Advocate Award. 2019
View all awards
  1. Reviewer / Referee

    The Center of Healthy and Durable Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation

  2. Member

    Executive Board of Texas State Center for Analytics and Data Science

  3. Reviewer / Referee

    National Science Foundation, Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation Division

  4. Chair

    GESSRS / PANGEA Committee

  5. Member

    Quality Enhancement Committee

  6. Other

    Board Member of Director, Chinese Professional in Geographic Information Systems

  7. View all activities