Xiaofan Liang, Graduate Research Assistant
I am a Ph.D. student in the School of City and Regional Planning, advised by Dr. Clio Andris. My research interests revolve around spatial social networks, general urban analytics (GIS, machine learning, and agent-based modeling), and digital civics/critical data/engagement methods in spatial planning. I received a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from UC-Berkeley (2015). I pursued another Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Minerva University (2019), through which I rotated to study in six different countries over four years and grew my interests in cities! Before coming to Georgia Tech, I was an REU at Santa Fe Institute (2017 and 2018), from where I fell in love with complexity science and Clio’s work. I am responsible for developing SSN R tutorial, metrics, and R package on the SNoMAN project. You can follow my work on my website.
Sichen Jin, Graduate Research Assistant
I’m a Computer Science Ph.D. student in the School of Interactive Computing, advised by Dr. Clio Andris. My research interests include Visualization, Geographic Information System/Science and Social Computing. Before coming to Georgia Tech, I got my bachelor degree in GIS from Zhejiang University. I also worked at the Natural Language Processing Lab of Tsinghua University and the Visualization and Interface Design Innovation Lab of UC Davis as a research assistant. I had worked on multiple geospatial visualization projects, including infectious diseases spread analysis, patterns of taxi trajectories analysis. I am also involved in some text visual analytics projects, such as rumor spread analysis and conversation structure analysis. You can follow my work on my website.
Heather Mase, Graduate Research Assistant
I am a master’s student pursuing a dual degree in City & Regional Planning (MCRP) and Geographic Information Science & Technology (MS-GIST) at Georgia Tech. My research and planning interests include urban environmental design, active transportation, geospatial analytics, and visual storytelling. Prior to pursuing my graduate studies, I worked for a real estate market analytics firm in Atlanta, GA and a trail planning/ conservation nonprofit in Charlotte, NC. I received my B.S. in Environmental Studies from Davidson College, where I conducted research on the effects of urbanization on streams. I am a native of Atlanta, Georgia and am looking forward to working on the SNoMaN project!
Dr. Clio Andris, Principal Investigator
I am an assistant professor in the School of City and Regional Planning and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. I research mathematical models of social networks, social flows, and interpersonal relationships in geographic space, applied to issues of urban planning, visualization, transportation and geography. I teach GIScience classes at multiple levels including Environmental GIS and Spatial Network Analysis, as well as classes on Information Visualization. I am a member of the Center for Spatial Planning Analytics and Visualization (CSPAV) and an affiliate of the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development (CQGRD). I am also a member of the School of Interactive Computing’s Information Visualization research group. I received my PhD from MIT in 2011 in Urban Information Systems where I was an NDSEG fellow and member of the Senseable City Lab. I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute (2012-2014) and a member of the faculty in the Department of Geography at Penn State (2014-2019).
