Wenjing Gong

About Me

Greetings,😀! I’m Wenjing Gong, a second-year Ph.D. student in Urban and Regional Science at Texas A&M University, co-advised by Dr. Lingqian (Ivy) Hu and Dr. Xinyue Ye. My academic training spans planning, geography, and design, and my current research focuses on enhancing urban resilience to climate extremes and environmental risks through data-driven approaches. Specifically, my research interests include:

• Urban Analytics and GeoAI: Advancing methods in multimodal data fusion and AI-driven analytics to enhance urban climate and environmental risk assessment and modeling.
• Human–Environment–Climate Nexus: Investigating the coupled interactions of climate extremes, urban systems, and human behavior to foster sustainable, resilient, and healthy urban futures.
• Social Sensing and Visual Intelligence: Harnessing geospatial imagery, mobility data, and social media to reveal urban dynamics and inform urban planning and policy.

Feel free to contact me via email or LinkedIn. I’d be happy to connect! (Updated on 03/2026)

Education

[2024-pres.] Ph.D. Student, Urban and Regional Science (Urban Analytics & GeoAI)
Texas A&M University, College Station, USA
Chair: Dr. Lingqian (Ivy) Hu, Co-Chair: Dr. Xinyue Ye, Committee members: Dr. Galen Newman and Dr. Lei Zou
[2019-2022] M.E., Architecture (Urban Study)
Tongji University, Shanghai, China
GPA: 88.5/100 (Entrance through the exam-free recommendation program)
[2019] Visiting Student, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Columbia University, New York, USA
[2014-2019] B.E., Architecture
Shandong University of Science & Technology, Qingdao, China
GPA: 90.5/100 (Rank: 1/60 each year)

Academic & Professional Experience

[2025-2026] Student Ambassador
Texas A&M Institute of Data Science, College Station, USA
[2025-2026] Student Fellow
Telehealth Institute, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA
[2024-2025] Research Assistant
Center for Geospatial Sciences, Applications and Technology, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA
[2022-2024] Designer and Planner
Architecture Design & Research Institute of Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Publications

See Google Scholar for the full list of publications.

Presentations

Conferences

• Gong, W., Ye, X., Song, Y. Essential Infrastructure or Unavoidable Risk? Modeling Urban Park Visitation under Dual Climate and Crime Stressors with Large-Scale Mobility Data. 2026 Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers, March 17-21, 2026, San Francisco, California, USA (Oral).
• Gong, W., Ye, X., Wu, K., Jamonnak, S., Zhang, W., Yang, Y., Huang, X. Integrating Spatiotemporal Vision Transformer into Digital Twins for High-Resolution Heat Stress Forecasting in Campus Environments. 2025 Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers, March 24-28, 2025, Detroit, Michigan, USA (Oral).
• Gong, W., Wu, K., Yang, Y., Zhang, W., Ye, X., Huang, X. Integrating high-resolution simulations and transformer network predictions for mitigating human heat stress: A digital twin of a Texas campus. 2024 Texas Weather Conference, November 9, 2024, College Station, Texas, USA (Oral).
• Gong, W., Yang, Y., Zhang, W., Wu, K., Ye, X., Huang, X. Integrating high-resolution simulations and transformer network predictions for mitigating human heat stress: A digital twin of a Texas campus. College of Architecture’s 26th Annual Showcase, October 3, 2024, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA (Poster).
• Gong, W. Simulating and Predicting Spatial-Temporal Human Outdoor Heat Exposure: A Case Study on a Texas Campus. The 2024 Symposium on Spatiotemporal Data Science: GeoAI for Social Sciences, July 24, 2024, Virtual (Abstract accepted).

Workshops

• Yang, Y., Gong, W., Zhang, K. DisasterVLP: Perceiving Multidimensional Disaster Damages from Street-View Images Using Visual-Language Models. Summer School on Cyberinfrastructure and Disaster Resilience, August 15, 2025, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA (Oral).
• Gu, J., Gong, W., Zhang, X. Analysis of the Spatial Distribution of Express Courier Stations and Assessment of Site Selection Effectiveness. DigitalFUTURES 12th Summer Workshops, July 2, 2022, Virtual (Oral).
• Gong, W., Huang, H., Zhang, X. Undoing Sprawl: Urban Agriculture as a Social Innovation. Resizing the Urban Form in the Era of “Negative Population Growth” Workshop, December 9, 2019, Columbia University, New York City, USA (Oral).

Awards & Honors

See my CV for the full list of awards and honors.

• [2026] Environmental Perception and Behavior Geography (EPBG) Travel Grant, 2026 Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers, $150.
• [2026] International Geographic Information Fund (IGIF) Scholarship Award, 2026 Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers, $1,200.
• [2026] Applied Geography Specialty Group Annual Meeting Award, 2026 Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers, $202.
• [2026] Travel Grant, LAUP Department, TAMU, $600.
• [2025] Travel Grant, Summer School on Cyberinfrastructure and Disaster Resilience, TAMU (funded by NSF), $200.
• [2025] Texas A&M Institute of Data Science (TAMIDS) Student Ambassador Scholarship, Domain Data Science Track (2025–2026 cohort), TAMU, $2,000.
• [2025] Ashok K. Dutt Award for Best Graduate Student Paper (1st place), Regional Development and Planning Specialty Group, 2025 Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers, $200.
• [2025] UCGIS I-GUIDE 2024–2025 Community Champions, $3,000 (Student leader; project under Dr. Xinyue Ye).
• [2025] Travel Grant, LAUP Department, TAMU, $600.
• [2019 - 2022] Academic Scholarship covering all tuition fees, TJU.
• [2014 - 2019] First-class Scholarships in academic performance (5%, 8 times), SDUST.
• [2014 - 2019] First-class Corporate Scholarships (5%, 2 times), SDUST.
• [2014 - 2019] “Outstanding Student Pioneer” (5%, 3 times), SDUST.
• [2019] “Outstanding Graduate” of Shandong Province (5%).
• [2019] “Outstanding Student” in Science, Technology, and Innovation (5%), SDUST.
• [2018] National Best Leader Award, National Green Building Design Competition.
• [2018] Grand Prize, National Green Building Design Competition - Deep Green Category.
• [2017] Excellence Award, China Architectural Education/TSINGRUN Award Students’ Paper Competition.

Teaching Experience

Teaching Assistant

• [2026 Spring] PLAN626:600: Advanced GIS & PLAN625:600: Introduction to GIS & PLAN625:700: Introduction to GIS (Online), Texas A&M University, College Station, USA
• [2025 Fall] PLAN626:600: Advanced GIS & PLAN625:700: Introduction to GIS (Online), Texas A&M University, College Station, USA
• [2020 Fall] Design Studio III (Urban Planning), Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Services

Invited Reviewer

• International Journal of Geographical Information Science
• Journal of Planning Education and Research
• Sustainable Cities and Society
• Journal of Transport Geography
• Journal of Transport and Land Use
• Transportation Planning and Technology
• Transactions in GIS
• Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy
• Computational Urban Science
• Physics and Chemistry of the Earth
• Frontiers in Environmental Science
• Frontiers in Psychology

Editorial Boards

• Managing Editor: Computational Urban Science

Conference Organizations

• Session Co-chair: Symposium on Human Dynamics Research: Extreme Weather, Human Responses, and Urban Resilience (I & Ⅱ). 2026 Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers, March 17-21, 2026, San Francisco, California, USA.
• Session Chair/Primary Organizer: Symposium on Human Dynamics Research: Urban Environmental Intelligence and Human-Climate Interactions (1 & 2). 2025 Annual Meeting of American Association of Geographers, March 24-28, 2025, Detroit, Michigan, USA.

Media Coverage

• TAMIDS Announces 2025-2026 Cohort of Student Ambassadors. [Link]
• Throwing Shade at Heatwaves: Tracking campus “hot spots” could help students stay cool in the Texas heat. [Link]