Month: November 2026

2027 AAG GeoAI Symposium in New York

Song Gao

2027 AAG GeoAI Symposium

2027 AAG Annual Meeting, New York City, February 8-12, 2027

Lead Organizers:

Zhenlong Li, Penn State University (zhenlong@psu.edu)

Yingjie Hu, University at Buffalo (yhu42@buffalo.edu)

Song Gao, University of Wisconsin, Madison (song.gao@wisc.edu)

Wenwen Li, Arizona State University (wenwen@asu.edu) 

Budhu Bhaduri, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (bhaduribl@ornl.gov)

Orhun Aydin, Saint Louis University (orhun.aydin@slu.edu)

Shawn Newsam, University of California, Merced (snewsam@ucmerced.edu)

Samantha T. Arundel, United States Geological Survey (sarundel@usgs.gov)

Gengchen Mai, University of Texas Austin (gengchen.mai@austin.utexas.edu)

Krzysztof Janowicz, University of Vienna (krzysztof.janowicz@univie.ac.at)

Michael Gould, Esri (mgould@esri.com)

Steffen Knoblauch, Heidelberg University (steffen.knoblauch@uni-heidelberg.de)

GeoAI continues to advance rapidly. Vision foundation models, large language models, multimodal foundation models, and other emerging AI approaches are creating new capabilities for geospatial research and applications. Spatial principles, geographic knowledge, and spatial constraints are increasingly being incorporated into AI architectures to develop more spatially explicit models, and explainable GeoAI methods are being explored to improve the interpretability and reliability of results. Advances in agentic geospatial systems, and increasingly autonomous GIS are also opening new directions for geospatial data discovery, spatial reasoning, analysis, modeling, mapping, and decision making.

At the same time, advances in AI ready geospatial data and knowledge infrastructures are creating new opportunities to connect authoritative data, semantics, provenance, and computational methods. GeoAI research continues to contribute to addressing societal challenges and advancing sustainable development goals, including improving individual and population health, enhancing community resilience to disasters, predicting spatiotemporal traffic flows, forecasting climate change impacts on ecosystems, supporting smart and connected communities and cities, and advancing humanitarian mapping and policymaking.

These developments also introduce important challenges. Large AI models can increase opacity and make it more difficult to understand how results are produced. Geographic and spatial bias, uncertainty, reproducibility, provenance, trust, accountability, and validation become increasingly important as geospatial workflows incorporate generative and agentic AI. The computational and environmental costs of training and operating large models also warrant greater attention. How can we continue to advance GeoAI for societal benefit while addressing these risks and challenges?

The 2027 GeoAI Symposium at AAG aims to bring together geographers, GIScientists, remote sensing scientists, computer scientists, health researchers, urban planners, transportation professionals, disaster response experts, ecologists, earth system scientists, government researchers and practitioners, industry practitioners, and other stakeholders to share recent GeoAI research, discuss emerging challenges, and help shape future directions for the field.

Sessions at AAG 2027

Panel sessions

  1. GeoAI Symposium: The Convergence of Generative AI and GIScience: Emerging Challenges and Opportunities (Panel session; Contact: Zhenlong Li,  Penn State (zhenlong@psu.edu);  Co-organizers: Song Gao,  University of Wisconsin-Madison;  Arif Masrur,  ESRI; Samantha T. Arundele, USGS; Jinmeng Rao, Google DeepMind; Huan Ning,  Emory University;  Temitope Akinboyewa,  Penn State; Ruixiang Liu,  Penn State; Ali Khosravi Kazazi,  Penn State). Chair: John Wilson;  Panelists: Simon Ilyushchenko, Shaowen Wang, Michael Gould, Xinyue Ye (discussant)
  2. GeoAI Symposium: The Convergence of Generative AI and GIScience: Research Agenda Towards Autonomous GIS (Panel session; Contact: Zhenlong Li,  Penn State (zhenlong@psu.edu);  Co-organizers: Song Gao,  University of Wisconsin-Madison;  Arif Masrur,  ESRI; Samantha T. Arundele, USGS; Jinmeng Rao, Google DeepMind; Huan Ning,  Emory University;  Temitope Akinboyewa,  Penn State; Ruixiang Liu,  Penn State; Ali Khosravi Kazazi,  Penn State). Chair: Peter Kedron;  Panelists: Jason Tullis, Lauren Bennett, Chaowei Yang, Devika Jain, May Yuan (discussant)
  3. GeoAI Symposium: Measured vs. Generated: Validating GeoAI When Decisions Carry Real Costs (Panel session, in person; Contact: Milan Janosov, The New Science of Maps, milan@janosov.com). 
  4. GeoAI Symposium: Communicating Geospatial AI: Maps, Satellite Imagery and Public Trust (Panel session, in person; Contact: Milan Janosov, The New Science of Maps, milan@janosov.com) 
  5. GeoAI Symposium:  Teaching GeoAI: What, how, who.  (Panel session, in person; Contact: Michael Gould, Esri, MGould@esri.com)  Panelists:  Peter Kedron (UCSB), J. Kim (VA Tech) 
  6. GeoAI Symposium: Trustworthy Generative GeoAI for Disaster Decision Support (Panel session, in person; Contact: Pingping Wang, Arizona State University (pwang188@asu.edu);  Co-organizers: Yi-Wen Mo, Arizona State University; Xiao Chen, Arizona State University)
  7. GeoAI Symposium: Data Curation or Model Innovation? Competing Visions for the Future of GeoAI. (Panel session in person; Contacts: Budhu Bhaduri, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, bhaduribl@ornl.gov and May Yuan, UT Dallas, myuan@utdallas.edu)
  8. GeoAI Symposium: GIScience Research and Education in the Era of AI (Panel session; Contact: Bandana Kar, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, yourbandana75@gmail.com; Co-organizers: Barnali Dixon, University of South Florida; Debarchana (Deb) Ghosh, University of Connecticut; Michael Gould, Esri;

Paper sessions

  1. GeoAI Symposium: GeoAI for Spatial Analytics and Modeling (Paper session; Contact: Di Zhu, University of Minnesota (dizhu@umn.edu) ; Co-organizers: Peng Luo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Guofeng Cao, University of Colorado, Boulder; Song Gao, University of Wisconsin, Madison)
  2. GeoAI Symposium: GeoAI for Disaster Management and Community Resilience (Paper session; Contact: Yuqin Jiang, University of Hawaii at Manoa (yuqinj@hawaii.edu ); Co-organizers: Su Yeon Han, Texas State University; Pingping Wang, Arizona State University)
  3. GeoAI Symposium: GeoAI for Earth Observation (Paper session; Contact: Tang Sui, University of Wisconsin-Madison (tsui5@wisc.edu ); Co-organizers: Qunying Huang, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Bandana Kar, National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Zhenlong Li, Penn State) 
  4. GeoAI Symposium: Trustworthy, Safe, and Ethical GeoAI (Paper session; Contact: Yue Lin, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (linyue@illinois.edu ); Co-organizers: Hongyu Zhang, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Peng Luo, University of Iowa; Yue Lin, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) 
  5. GeoAI Symposium: GeoAI for Disaster Resilience (Paper session; Contact: Bing Zhou, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (bzhou11@utk.edu ); Co-organizers: Zhenqi (Ryan) Zhou, Yale University; Yifan Yang, Texas A&M University; Lei Zou, Texas A&M University; Yingjie Hu, University at Buffalo; Qunying Huang, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Marcela Suarez, University of New Mexico; Morteza Karimzadeh, University of Colorado, Boulder)
  6. GeoAI Symposium: GeoAI for Fire Research (Paper session; Contact: Tang Sui, University of Wisconsin-Madison (tsui5@wisc.edu ); Co-organizers: Qunying Huang, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Song Gao, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Yingjie Hu, University at Buffalo; Orhun Aydin, Saint Louis University; Manzhu Yu, Penn State; Huanfa Chen, University College London; Jing Yao, University of Glasgow)
  7. GeoAI Symposium: Environmental Intelligence with Emerging Deep Learning Architectures and Datasets (Paper session; Contact: Ruopu Li, Southern Illinois University (ruopu.li@siu.edu ); Co-organizers: Ethan J. Shavers, U.S. Geological Survey; Michael Edidem, Southern Illinois University) 
  8. GeoAI Symposium: Digital Twins and Process-Informed Machine Learning for Characterizing Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Environmental Systems (Paper session; Contact: Ruopu Li, Southern Illinois University (ruopu.li@siu.edu ); Co-organizers: Ethan J. Shavers, U.S. Geological Survey; Michael Edidem, Southern Illinois University) 
  9. GeoAI Symposium: The Convergence of Generative AI and GIScience: Autonomous AI Agents Development for Geospatial Tasks (Paper session; Contact: Zhenlong Li,  Penn State University (zhenlong@psu.edu);  Co-organizers: Song Gao,  University of Wisconsin-Madison;  Arif Masrur,  ESRI; Samantha T. Arundele, USGS; Jinmeng Rao, Google DeepMind; Huan Ning,  Emory University;  Temitope Akinboyewa,  Penn State; Ruixiang Liu,  Penn State; Ali Khosravi Kazazi,  Penn State)
  10. GeoAI Symposium: The Convergence of Generative AI and GIScience: Framework, Foundation Models, Standards, and Infrastructure (Paper session; Contact: Zhenlong Li,  Penn State University (zhenlong@psu.edu);   Co-organizers: Song Gao,  University of Wisconsin-Madison;  Arif Masrur,  ESRI; Samantha T. Arundele, USGS; Jinmeng Rao, Google DeepMind; Huan Ning,  Emory University;  Temitope Akinboyewa,  Penn State; Ruixiang Liu,  Penn State; Ali Khosravi Kazazi,  Penn State)
  11. GeoAI Symposium: The Convergence of Generative AI and GIScience: Society Impacts, Education and Ethical Considerations (Paper session; Contact: Zhenlong Li,  Penn State University (zhenlong@psu.edu); Co-organizers: Song Gao,  University of Wisconsin-Madison;  Arif Masrur,  ESRI; Samantha T. Arundele, USGS; Jinmeng Rao, Google DeepMind; Huan Ning,  Emory University;  Temitope Akinboyewa,  Penn State; Ruixiang Liu,  Penn State; Ali Khosravi Kazazi,  Penn State)
  12. GeoAI Symposium: The Convergence of Generative AI and GIScience: Domain Applications and Use Cases (Paper session; Contact: Zhenlong Li,  Penn State University (zhenlong@psu.edu);  Co-organizers: Song Gao,  University of Wisconsin-Madison;  Arif Masrur,  ESRI; Samantha T. Arundele, USGS; Jinmeng Rao, Google DeepMind; Huan Ning,  Emory University;  Temitope Akinboyewa,  Penn State; Ruixiang Liu,  Penn State; Ali Khosravi Kazazi,  Penn State)
  13. GeoAI Symposium: The Convergence of Generative AI and GIScience: Benchmarking, Fine Tuning, and Evaluation (Paper session; Contact: Zhenlong Li,  Penn State University (zhenlong@psu.edu);  Co-organizers: Song Gao,  University of Wisconsin-Madison;  Arif Masrur,  ESRI; Samantha T. Arundele, USGS; Jinmeng Rao, Google DeepMind; Huan Ning,  Emory University;  Temitope Akinboyewa,  Penn State; Ruixiang Liu,  Penn State; Ali Khosravi Kazazi,  Penn State)
  14. GeoAI Symposium: Social Sensing and Big Data Computing for Disaster Management (Paper session; Contact: M. Naser Lessani, Pennsylvania State University (mzl6134@psu.edu ); Co-organizers: Zhenlong Li, Pennsylvania State University; Xiao Huang, Emory University; Yuqin Jiang, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Qunying Huang, University of Wisconsin; Bandana Kar, U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
  15. GeoAI Symposium: Understanding Human-Environment Interaction Using Geospatial Big Data and GeoAI (Paper session; Contact: Temitope Akinboyewa, Pennsylvania State University (tea5209@psu.edu ); Co-organizers: Zhenlong Li, Pennsylvania State University; Huan Ning; Sooyoung Lim; Manzhu Yu) 
  16. GeoAI Symposium: Geospatial Big Data and Transportation (Paper session; Contact: Sooyoung Lim, Pennsylvania State University (sfl5889@psu.edu ); Co-organizers: Zhenlong Li, Pennsylvania State University; Yuqin Jiang, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Ruixiang Liu, Pennsylvania State University) 
  17. GeoAI Symposium: Integrative Approaches to Understanding Human Mobility and Health Outcomes (Paper session; Contact: Temitope Akinboyewa, Pennsylvania State University (tea5209@psu.edu ); Co-organizers: Zhenlong Li, Pennsylvania State University; Huan Ning, Emory University; M. Naser Lessani, Pennsylvania State University; Ali Khosravi Kazazi,  Pennsylvania State University; Ruixiang Liu, Pennsylvania State University, Feifei Yang, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.) 
  18. GeoAI Symposium: Harnessing Geospatial Big Data for Infectious Diseases (Paper session; Contact: M. Naser Lessani, Pennsylvania State University (mzl6134@psu.edu ); Co-organizers: Zhenlong Li, Pennsylvania State University; Shengjie Lai, University of Southampton; Bo Huang, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Kathleen Stewart, University of Maryland)
  19. GeoAI Symposium: Geospatial Big Data for Analyzing and Understanding Human Mobility Patterns (Paper session; Contact: Sooyoung Lim, Pennsylvania State University (sfl5889@psu.edu ); Co-organizers: M. Naser Lessani, Pennsylvania State University; Zhenlong Li, Pennsylvania State University; Temitope Ezekiel Akinboyewa, Pennsylvania State University; Yuqin Jiang, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa; Manzhu Yu, Pennsylvania State University) 
  20. GeoAI Symposium: Big Data Computing for Geospatial Applications (Paper session; Contact: Ruixiang Liu, Pennsylvania State University (ruixiangliu@psu.edu ); Co-organizers: Zhenlong Li, Pennsylvania State University; Qunying Huang, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Eric Shook, University of Minnesota; Wenwu Tang, University of North Carolina at Charlotte)
  21. GeoAI Symposium: The Convergence of Generative AI and GIScience: Generative AI for Geospatial Method and Knowledge Discovery (Paper session; Contact: Zhangyu Wang,  University of Maine (zhangyu.wang@maine.edu); Co-organizers: Peng Luo, University of Iowa (peng-luo@uiowa.edu); Di Zhu, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (dizhu@umn.edu))
  22. GeoAI Symposium: GeoAI for Event-Based Spatiotemporal Modeling and Sensing (Paper session; Contact: Zhongfu Ma, University of Minnesota Twin Cities (ma000523@umn.edu) ; Co-organizers: Meicheng Xiong, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Sheng Wang, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Jacob Harris, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Di Zhu, University of Minnesota Twin Cities) 
  23. GeoAI Symposium: GeoAI Frontiers for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Paper session; Contact: Jiayi Song, University of Florida (ji.song@ufl.edu ); Co-organizers: Chang Zhao, University of Florida; Jiangxiao Qiu, University of Florida) 
  24. GeoAI Symposium: AI-enabled Assessment of Coupled Human-Environment Systems: Toward a Sustainable and Desirable Future (Paper session; Contact: Genhong Gao, University of Florida (genhong.gao@ufl.edu ); Co-organizers: Jiayi Song, University of Florida; Chang Zhao, University of Florida; Jiangxiao Qiu, University of Florida) 
  25. GeoAI Symposium: Integration of AI and GIS for Smart Urban Management and Planning (Paper Session: Contact: Junghwan Kim, Virginia Tech (junghwankim@vt.edu)); Co-organizers: TBD)  
  26. GeoAI Symposium: GeoAI for Urban Human Dynamics and Human-Environment Interactions (Paper session; Contact: Yuqin Jiang, University of Hawaii at Manoa (yuqinj@hawaii.edu); Co-organizers: Zhenlong Li, Pennsylvania State University, Sooyoung Lim, Pennsylvania State University)
  27. GeoAI Symposium: Multimodal GeoAI and Geospatial World Models (Paper session; Lead organizers: Yuhao Kang, The University of Texas at Austin (yuhao.kang@austin.utexas.edu); Yuye Zhou, UC Berkeley (yuyezhou@berkeley.edu); Co-organizers: Fangzheng Lyu, Virginia Tech; Xiaoyu Li, The University of Texas at Austin; Lu Liang, UC Berkeley; Raj Bhattarai, Virginia Tech)
  28. GeoAI Symposium: Urban Sensing and Understanding via Geospatial Big Data and AI (Paper session; Contact: Huan Ning, Emory University (huan.ning@emory.edu); Co-organizers: Zhenlong Li, Pennsylvania State University; Xiao Huang, Emory University; Ryan Zhenqi Zhou, Yale University; Qifan Wu, Emory University; Yuhao Jia, Emory University; Zifu Wang, Harvard University)
  29. GeoAI Symposium: GeoAI Methods and Applications for Urban Transportation Analytics (Paper session; Contact: Armita Kar, George Mason University (akar3@gmu.edu); Co-organizers: Yifei Wang, George Mason University; Jonathan Stiles, Columbia University; Luyu Liu, Auburn University; Jinhyung Lee, Western University; Angela Yao, University of Georgia; Kathleen Stewart, University of Maryland; Harvey J. Miller, The Ohio State University)

This symposium is sponsored by: AAG GISS, SAM, and CISG specialty groups.