Yanbing Chen
Position title: Ph.D. Student in Cartography and GIS
Pronouns: She/Her
Email: yanbing.chen@wisc.edu
Website: Yanbing Chen's website
Phone: Advisor: Dr. Jonathan K. Nelson
RESEARCH AREA
- Big Data Analysis and Visualization, Agentic Workflow, Information Visualization, Cartography, HCI
EDUCATION
- Ph.D., Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2028 (Expected)
- M.S., Cartography and GIS, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2025
- B.S., Geography and Economics, McGill University, 2023
AFFILIATION
- UW Cartography Lab (CartLab)
- GISphere (Co-president)
- Cartography Specialty Group, AAG (Former Student Director 2025-2026)
- McGill Roger Tomlinson Lab for GIScience (Undergrad Alumni)
- McGill Geographic Information Center (Former Team Member)
SELECTED PROJECT GALLERY (More on Portfolio)
Tool and Dashboard
Map
- Hong Kong Music Atlas
- Forgotten Tongues: Interactive Atlas of Extinct Languages – Mapping 3000 dying languages
- A historical storymap for California Gold Rush – Story Map about history of Chinese immigrant in U.S.
- To Incarcerate or to Educate? – Cost of inmates in U.S. states with their spending on education.
- Just Another Day in America – The Map designed for UW-Cartography Lab 2024 Map Challenge.
- Behind Bars – A map showcasing a comparison of incarceration rates across U.S. states.
PUBLICATIONS
- Chen, Y., Nelson, J.K. Geographic Information Science and Technology Master’s Education in the United States: Longitudinal Trends, Demographics, and a National Inventory of Active Programs. KN J. Cartogr. Geogr. Inf. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42489-026-00221-8
- , , and . 2026. “ Evaluating GIS Professional Graduate Program Curricula in the United States.” Transactions in GIS 30, no. 3: e70289. https://doi.org/10.1111/tgis.70289.
- 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. https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2025.2567564
- Chen Wei, Yiwei Zhang, Xi Guan, Qianheng Zhang, Yanbing Chen, Yuhan Ji, Yibo Zhao, Maoping Wang, Ying Nie, Hanchen Zhuang, and Song Gao. 2025. GeoAI for Driving Risk Assessment via Vision-Language Models: A Knowledge Guided RAG System and Dual Evaluation. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on AI for Geographic Knowledge Discovery (GeoAI ’25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 161–173. https://doi.org/10.1145/3764912.3770832
- Gu, Z., Li, W., Zhou, B., Wang, Y., Chen, Y., Ye, S., Wang, K., Gu, H. and Kang, Y. (2025), GISphere Knowledge Graph for Geography Education: Recommending Graduate Geographic Information System/Science Programs. Transactions in GIS, 29: e13283.
- Sengupta, R., Vankeerberghen, G., Wen, R., Rao, J., Chen, Y. (2023). GIS‐enabled historiography to determine travel routes during the Western Han period via agent‐based models and least‐cost path analysis. Transactions in GIS, 27(4), 1090–1103.
CONFERENCE AND PRESENTATION
- An overview of current GIScience Education: from Faculty Careers to Student Training (GIScience 2025)
- Analyzing Global Faculty Mobility and Research Themes Through Hiring Networks (AAG 2025)
- Raster-to-Vector Heat Maps: Multiscale Visualization Approach to Mapping with Big Geospatial Data (NACIS 2024)
- Investigating Mobility and Research Themes through Faculty Hiring Network in GIScience(UCGIS symposium 2024)
- Facilitating Global Connections in Geographic Information Science Education, Research, and Practice (AAG 2024)
- Digital Cartography and Historical Insights: Mapping a New Course for the Past in the Digital Age (AAG 2024)
- Academic Recruiting in GIScience: Demographics, Mobility and Hierarchy (SKI Conference Canada 2023)
- Mobile Tracker of Volunteered Geographic Information; Using Story Map as Visual Storytelling (McGill GIS Day 2022)
AWARDS AND HONORS
Map Competition
- Map Selected (1 of 15 works representing the U.S.), International Cartographic Exhibition 2025
- Map Admitted, UW–Madison Digital Salon 2024, 2025
- First Place, Graduate Student Petchenik Map Competition 2024
Awards and Scholarships
- Inclusivity Scholarship, IEEE VIS, 2026
- International Geographic Information Fund (IGIF) Scholarship, AAG, 2026
- CaGIS Scholarship, Cartography and Geographic Information Society (national award, one of two given to MS student), 2025
- Trewartha Graduate Research Scholarship, Dept. of Geography, UW-Madison, 2025
- CAGIS Rising Award, Cartography and Geographic Information Society. Kang Y., Chen Y., Zhou B., Gu Z. Characterizing and Promoting Cartography and GIS Graduate Programs through Research Theme Discovery and Online Seminars, 2024
- Master’s Student Research Grant, AAG Cartography Special Group, 2024
- Scholarship for CaGIS & UCGIS Symposium, International Cartographic Association, 2024
- University Graduate Fellowship, University of Wisconsin – Madison, 2023
- Geographic Information Center (GIC) Undergraduate Award, GIC at McGill University 2023
- Dean’s Honour List, Arts Research Internship Awards, Arts Undergraduate Awards, McGill University, 2022
Travel Awards
- OpenPaleo Travel Grant, 2026
- GIScience NSF Travel Award, 2025
- CaGIS International Travel Grant, U.S. National Committee to the Intl Cartographic Association, 2025
- Student Research Grants Competition – Conference Presentation Travel Award, UW-Madison, 2025
- NACIS Student Travel Grant, North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) 2025, 2024
- Trewartha Conference Travel Awards, Dept. of Geography, UW–Madison 2024