Bing Zhou portrait

Bing Zhou (he/him)

Assistant Professor

Department of Geography and Sustainability

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Research Interests

GeoAI & Deep Learning
Responsible GIScience
Geospatial Data Science
Disaster Resilience & Management
Big Data Analysis & Visualization
Human–Environment Interaction

About

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. My research sits at the intersection of GeoAI, Responsible GIScience, and disaster resilience, leveraging large language models, social media, and geospatial big data to support smart disaster response and equitable community recovery.

Prior to joining UTK, I was an Assistant Teaching Professor at Pennsylvania State University and completed my Ph.D. at Texas A&M University under the advisement of Prof. Lei Zou. I also bring more than six years of applied geospatial engineering experience from industry.

Recent News

  • 2026 Co-chairing three AAG 2026 symposia on GeoAI Ethics and Disaster Resilience, San Francisco.
  • 2025 New paper published in Annals of the AAG — rapid disaster response with LLMs and social media.
  • 2025 Joined University of Tennessee, Knoxville as Assistant Professor.
  • 2025 Guest lecture at UT Austin: Geospatial Data Science for Climate Resilience.
  • 2024 Received Geography Graduate Student Excellence in Research Award, Texas A&M.
  • 2024 Ph.D. conferred from Texas A&M University. Dissertation: Step Toward Responsible GIScience.
27+ Journal Articles
3 Book Chapters
30+ Conference Talks
30+ Peer Reviews
$2M+ Research Funding

Academic Degrees

Ph.D. in Geography 2021 – 2024

Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas

Research: GeoAI in Disaster Management; Responsible GIScience; Computational Mental Health; Cyberinfrastructure

Dissertation: Step Toward Responsible GIScience: Paradigms, Challenges, and Applications

M.E. in Geodesy & Geoinformatics 2011 – 2014

Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Research: Multi-sensor integration and localization

Thesis: Realization of Mobile Mapping System and Data Collection

B.E. in Geodesy & Geomatics 2007 – 2011

Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

Research: GNSS positioning

Thesis: Research of Ionospheric Delay Interpolations and Their Performance Comparison

Professional Appointments

Assistant Professor 2025 – Present

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Assistant Teaching Professor 2024 – 2025

Pennsylvania State University

Graduate Research Assistant 2022 – 2024

Texas A&M University

Graduate Teaching Assistant & Lab Instructor 2021 – 2023

Texas A&M University

Vice Deputy Director / Software Engineer / Certified UAV Pilot 2014 – 2021

Central Southern China Electric Design Institute, Wuhan

Multiple roles including Survey Engineer, Software Development Engineer, and Certified UAV Pilot (top 0.01% national contest)

Graduate Research Assistant 2011 – 2014

Tongji University, Shanghai

Software Development Engineer Intern 2011 – 2012

Leica Geosystem, Shanghai

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

2025

Zhou, B., Zou, L., Yang, M., Lin, B., Mandal, D., Abedin, J., … Tian, H. (2025).

Rapid Disaster Response and Damage Estimation with Social Media and Pretrained Large Language Models: Insights from Multiple Hurricanes.

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 1–23.

DOI
2025

Yang, Y., Zou, L., Zhou, B., Li, D., Lin, B., Abedin, J., & Yang, M. (2025).

Hyperlocal disaster damage assessment using bi-temporal street-view imagery and pre-trained vision models.

Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 121, 102335.

DOI
2025

Chen, Y., Nelson, J. K., Zhou, B., Zhou, R. Z., Ye, S., Liu, H., … Kang, Y. (2025).

Where are GIScience faculty hired from? Analyzing faculty mobility and research themes through hiring networks.

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 1–25.

DOI
2025

Gu, Z., Li, W., Zhou, B., Wang, Y., Chen, Y., Ye, S., Wang, K., Gu, H., & Kang, Y. (2025).

GISphere Knowledge Graph for Geography Education: Recommending Graduate GIS/Science Programs.

Transactions in GIS, 29(1), e13283.

DOI
2024

Lin, B., Zou, L., Yang, M., Zhou, B., Mandal, D., Abedin, J., … Ning, N. (2024).

Progress in understanding human-COVID-19 dynamics using geospatial big data: a systematic review.

Annals of GIS, 1–21.

DOI
2024

Mandal, D., Zou, L., Wilkho, R. S., Baig, F., Abedin, J., Zhou, B., Cai, H., Gharaibeh, N., & Lam, N. (2024).

PRIME: A CyberGIS Platform for Resilience Inference Measurement and Enhancement.

Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 114, 102197.

DOI
2024

Tian, H., Cai, H., Hu, L., Qiang, Y., Zhou, B., Yang, M., & Lin, B. (2024).

Unveiling community adaptations to extreme heat events using mobile phone location data.

Journal of Environmental Management, 366, 121665.

DOI
2024

Abedin, J., Zou, L., Yang, M., Rohli, R., Mandal, D., Qiang, Y., Akter, H., Zhou, B., Lin, B., & Cai, H. (2024).

Deciphering spatial-temporal dynamics of flood exposure in the United States.

Sustainable Cities and Society, 108, 105444.

DOI
2024

Zhou, R. Z., Hu, Y., Zou, L., Cai, H., Zhou, B. (2024).

Understanding the disparate impacts of the 2021 Texas winter storm and power outages through mobile phone location data and nighttime light images.

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 103, 104339.

DOI
2023

Zhou, B., Zou, L., Yang, M., Lin, B., Mandal, D., Abedin, J. (2023).

Overlooked Voices under Strict Lockdown: Mapping Humanitarian Needs in 2022 Shanghai COVID-19 Outbreak.

Cartography and Geographic Information Science.

DOI
2023

Zhou, B., Zou, L., Hu, Y., Qiang, Y., Goldberg, D. (2023).

TopoBERT: a plug and play toponym recognition module harnessing fine-tuned BERT.

International Journal of Digital Earth, 16(1), 3045–3063.

DOI
2022

Zhou, B., Zou, L., Mostafavi, A., Lin, B., Yang, M., Gharaibeh, N., Cai, H., Abedin, J., Mandal, D. (2022).

VictimFinder: Harvesting rescue requests in disaster response from social media with BERT.

Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 95, 101824.

DOI
2023

Lin, B., Zou, L., Zhao, B., Huang, X., Cai, H., Yang, M., Zhou, B. (2023).

Sensing the Pulse of the Pandemic: Geovisualizing the Demographic Disparities of Public Sentiment toward COVID-19 through Social Media.

Cartography and Geographic Information Science.

2023

Mandal, D., Zou, L., Cai, H., Lin, B., Zhou, B., Abedin, J., Yang, M. (2023).

Algorithmic Uncertainties in Geolocating Social Media Data for Disaster Management.

Cartography and Geographic Information Science.

DOI
2023

Wang, Y., Kang, Y., Liu, H., Hou, C., Zhou, B., Ye, S., Liu, Y., Rao, J., Pei, Z., Ye, X., & Gao, S. (2023).

Choosing GIS graduate programs from afar: Chinese students' perspectives.

Transactions in GIS.

DOI
2022

Zou, L., Liao, D., Lam, N., Meyer, M., Gharaibeh, N., Cai, H., Zhou, B., Li, D. (2022).

Social media for emergency rescue: An analysis of rescue requests on Twitter during Hurricane Harvey.

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 85, 103513.

DOI
2022

Lin, B., Zou, L., Duffield, N., Mostafavi, A., Cai, H., Zhou, B., et al. (2022).

Revealing the linguistic and geographical disparities of public awareness to Covid-19 outbreak through social media.

International Journal of Digital Earth, 15(1), 868–889.

DOI
2022

Yang, M., Zou, L., Cai, H., Qiang, Y., Lin, B., Zhou, B., Abedin, J., Mandal, D. (2022).

Spatial–Temporal Land Loss Modeling and Simulation in a Vulnerable Coast: A Case Study in Coastal Louisiana.

Remote Sensing, 14(4), 896.

DOI

Book Chapters

2024

Zhou, B., Lin, B., Zou, L., Yang, M., Tian, H., Cai, H. (2025).

Integrating Natural Language Processing in Human Geography.

GeoAI and Human Geography: The Dawn of a New Spatial Intelligence Era. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 43–61.

2023

Zou, L., Mostafavi, A., Zhou, B., Lin, B., Mandal, D., Yang, M. (2023).

Empowering Smart Disaster Response with GeoAI.

Handbook of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence. CRC Press.

DOI
2014

Yao, L., Zhou, B. (2014).

Development and Tests of Low Cost MMS.

Principle and Application Progress in Location-Based Services. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Cham.

DOI

"Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."

— Albert Einstein

Teaching Interests

Introduction to GIS / Spatial Data Science
GIS Programming
Remote Sensing & UAV
Spatial Big Data Analytics
Visualization in GIS
GIS Online Certificate Program

Courses Taught

UTK
University of Tennessee, Knoxville Assistant Professor
GEOG 312 First Step in GIS Programming Spring 2026
GEOG 411 Introduction to Geographic Information Science Spring 2026
GEOG 415 Quantitative Methods in Geography Fall 2025
PSU
Pennsylvania State University Assistant Teaching Professor
GEOG 582 AI in Geospatial Data Science Spring 2025
GEOG 480 Exploring Imagery and Elevation Data in GIS Applications Fall 2024; Spring 2025
GEOG 589 Emerging Trends in Remote Sensing Fall 2024
TAMU
Texas A&M University Teaching Assistant & Lab Instructor
GEOG 477/677 Geomorphometry Spring 2023
GEOG 475/675 Advanced GIS Fall 2022
GEOG 392/676 GIS Programming Spring 2022
GEOG 391/659 Geodatabase Fall 2021

Invited Talks & Guest Lectures

  • 2025
    Geospatial Data Science for Climate Resilience Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin
  • 2024
    Rapid Disaster Damage Estimation with Social Media Data Department of Environmental Science, Emory University
  • 2024
    Capstones in GeoAI GEOG 695 Frontiers in GIScience, Texas A&M University
  • 2023
    GeoAI in Natural Disaster Management and Application of Geodatabase GEOG 659 Geodatabase, Texas A&M University
  • 2022
    Improving Disaster Management with Social Media and AI Texas Sea Grant Community Outreach, Weslaco, Texas (Invited Talk)

Student Mentorship

  • 2025–
    Junbo Wang — Master Student Multimodal GenAI research
  • 2025
    Shelton Simmons — Penn State Online Program (GEOG600 Thesis) An Attention Model for Remote Sensing Landcover Classification
  • 2023
    Jeffery Pike — Undergraduate Research Assistant, Texas A&M
  • 2023
    Edward Zhao — High School Student (UCGIS Research Competition) Digital Footprints of the 2023 Turkey Earthquake: Evidence from Social Media — 2nd Prize

Selected Honors & Awards

2024
Geography Graduate Student Excellence in Research Award Department of Geography, Texas A&M University ($500)
2024
Graduate Student Research Travel Grant Graduate and Professional School, Texas A&M University ($750)
2024
AAG Spatial Analysis & Modeling Specialty Group Travel Award Association of American Geographers ($250)
2024
2nd Place – AAG GISS Specialty Group Student Paper Competition Association of American Geographers (Co-author)
2023
International Cartographic Association (ICA) Scholarship $1,500
2021
CaGIS Scholarship Award Cartography and Geographic Information Society ($1,500; 1–2 awardees worldwide per year)
2021
1st Place – AAG GISS Specialty Group Student Paper Competition Association of American Geographers ($750)
2021
Best Paper Award – International Symposium on Geospatial Approaches to Combating COVID-19 Co-author
2017
2nd Prize – Top UAV Pilots of China Electric Power Industry Contest Top 0.01% nationally

Proposals Under Review (as PI)

PI – Under Review 2026

HazardWeave: An AI-supported unified platform for smart disaster management

AI-Tennessee THRIVE Program · $25,000

PI – Under Review 2026

CausalNet: A Human-AI Causal Inference System for Co-occurring Hazards Smart Decision Support

UTK Ascent Program · $50,000

Co-PI – Under Review 2025

Does moving to areas with cleaner air slow cognitive decline? A longitudinal spatiotemporal study

NIH R21 · PI: Ensheng Dong · $400,000

Active & Completed Projects (as Co-PI)

Co-PI 2022

Characterizing and Promoting Cartography and GIS Graduate Programs through Research Theme Discovery and Online Seminars

CaGIS Rising Grant · Student PI: Yuhao Kang

Research Participation Projects

Research Assistant 2023–2026

Climate-LEAD: Climate effects on localized environmental health disparities in overburdened Texas communities

NASEM Gulf Research Program · PI: Lei Zou · $1,499,990

Research Assistant 2023–2026

HNDS-I: A Cyberinfrastructure for multiscale human dynamics and resilience research

NSF Human Networks and Data Science · PI: Nina Lam · $1,096,902

Research Assistant 2021–2023

EAGER: SAI-E: Synchronizing decision-support via human- and social-centered digital twin infrastructures for coastal communities

NSF EAGER · PI: Xinyue Ye · $298,982

Research Assistant 2019–2022

Reducing the human impacts of flash floods: development of microdata and causal model

NSF HDBE Program · PI: Nasir Gharaibeh · $350,000

Research Assistant 2020–2023

Disaster city digital twin: integrating machine and human intelligence to augment flood resilience

TAMU-X Grant · PI: Ali Mostafavi · $1,000,000

Research Assistant 2022–2024

Leveraging geospatial big data and AI to enhance disaster resilience in vulnerable communities

PVAMU & TAMU Panther RISE Grant · PI: Lei Zou · $40,000

Research Assistant 2022–2023

AAG Summer Workshop Series: Spatial data science for social media analytics

PI: Lei Zou · $1,750

Teaching Materials 2022–2023

Spatial data science: advances and applications (GeoAI section)

TAMIDS Course Development Grant · PI: Heng Cai · $15,000

Journal Peer Review

Reviewer of >30 manuscripts for the following journals:

Computational Urban Science Int. J. Applied Earth Observation Transactions in GIS Annals of GIS IEEE Access Scientific Reports PLOS One Geoinformatics Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduction Computers, Environment and Urban Systems Information Processing & Management Transportation Research Part D Network: Computation in Neural Systems Cities Pervasive and Mobile Computing Earth's Future Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk Applied Soft Computing

Conference & Program Review

  • TRB Annual Meeting
  • University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS)

Organized Conference Sessions

2026
Co-Chair — GISER Symposium: Ethics in GIScience AAG 2026 Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA
2026
Co-Chair — GISER Symposium: AI & Ethics in Geography Education AAG 2026 Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA
2026
Co-Chair — GeoAI & Deep Learning Symposium: AI Ethics and Spatial Equity AAG 2026 Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA
2026
Chair — GeoAI and Deep Learning Symposium: GeoAI for Disaster Resilience AAG 2026 Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA
2025
Chair — GeoAI & Deep Learning Symposium: GeoAI for Disaster Resilience AAG 2025 Annual Meeting, Detroit, MI
2025
Organizer — GeoAI Symposium: Spatial Data Science and GeoAI Ethics: Bridging Research and Education AAG 2025 Annual Meeting, Detroit, MI
2025
Chair — Community Resilience Research: Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons Learned (Panel) AAG 2025 Annual Meeting, Detroit, MI
2024
Chair — GeoAI & Deep Learning Symposium: GeoAI for Disaster Resilience; Chair — GISphere Special Session AAG 2024 Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI
2023
Chair — GeoAI & Deep Learning Symposium: GeoAI for Disaster Resilience AAG 2023 Annual Meeting, Denver, CO

Committee & Leadership Service

  • 2024–2025
    Committee Member — Penn State GEOINT Graduate Selection Committee Evaluate graduate program applicants
  • 2023–2025
    BOD Member — AAG Spatial Analysis & Modeling Specialty Group Attending BOD meetings; organizing Student Travel Award; website updates
  • 2021–2025
    Chair & BOD MemberGISphere Project Non-profit organization empowering GIS education; coordination, funding, research collaboration
  • 2022
    Invited Panelist — AutoCarto 2022 Student Success in Empowering Social Goods with Cartography and GIScience

Office

Room 207, Burchfiel Geography Building
Department of Geography and Sustainability
College of Arts and Sciences
1000 Phillip Fulmer Way
Knoxville, TN 37996
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
+1 (979) 255-0199

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Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting

AAG 2026

San Francisco, California  ·  March 17–21, 2026

Chair Organizer Presenter Co-author
Tuesday March 17
Organizer Paper

GISER Symposium: AI & Ethics in Geography Education

2:30 PM – 3:50 PM Nikko I, 3rd Floor, Nikko
Co-author Paper Hybrid

AAG GISS Specialty Group – Honors Competition for Student Papers 1

2:30 PM – 3:50 PM Imperial B, Ballroom Level, Hilton
Co-author Paper Hybrid

GeoAI and Deep Learning Symposium: Social Sensing and GeoAI for Public Health

4:10 PM – 5:30 PM Peninsula, 25th Floor, Nikko
Wednesday March 18
Thursday March 19
Organizer Panel

GISER Symposium: Ethics in GIScience

10:10 AM – 11:30 AM Golden Gate, 25th Floor, Nikko
Friday March 20
Organizer Paper

GeoAI and Deep Learning Symposium: AI Ethics and Spatial Equity

2:30 PM – 3:50 PM Peninsula, 25th Floor, Nikko
7Sessions
4Days
1Chair
3Organizer
1Presenter
2Co-author