Rui Zhu 4829 Ellison Hall Department of Geography University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Tel: (412)-577-8888 E-mail: ruizhu@geog.ucsb.edu Website: http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~zhu/ EDUCATION Ph.D., Geography University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), Santa Barbara, CA Specialization: GIScience, Spatial Statistics and GeoSpatial Semantics (Co)Advisors: Krzysztof Janowicz and Phaedon Kyriakidis October 2014 - Present M.S., Information Sciences University of Pittsburgh (PITT), Pittsburgh, PA August 2012 - December 2013 Specialization: Geoinformatics Advisor: Hassan Karimi B.S., Management Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan, China September 2008 - June 2012 Specialization: Information Management and Information Systems REASERCH INTERESTS Spatial Statistics (Ph.D. thesis topic): higher-order spatial interaction models; multiple-point (geo)statistics; geographic field analysis; spatial point pattern analysis; contextual classification; spatial simulation and machine learning. GeoSpatial Semantics: semantic signatures; ontology alignment; topic modeling; semantic enrichment. REASERCH AND PROJECTS Research Assistant - Funded by Siemens Corporation September 2017 - September 2018 STKO Lab & Siemens Corporate Technology (Dr. Krzysztof Janowicz & Dr. Jack Hodges) Conceptualized and developed a pattern-based, multi-modal framework for OWL ontologies to aid subject matter experts in developing the necessary axiomatization for semantic applications; Designed and implemented a user interface to empower subject matter experts to build shapes using SHACL in order to validate knowledge graphs. Research Intern - Funded by DOE July 2017 - September 2017 Oak Ridge National Lab (Dr. Robert N. Stewart) Built spatio-temporal visualizations for African conflicts from 1997-2017; Used the self-exciting point process model to predict the occurrence of conflicts. Analyzed the semantics of African news in terms of conflicts and mapped them into different spatiotemporal perspectives. Research Assistant - Funded by DOT August 2016 - April 2017 STKO Lab & UCCONNECT, UCSB (Dr. Krzysztof Janowicz & Dr. Kostas Goulias ) Modeled long distance travel pattern in the California household travel survey (CHTS) Augmented place attractiveness indicators from social media using topic modeling.
Core Member - Funded by NSF May 2016 - July 2017 National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (Graduate Pursuit) Built an annual-county level data panel (30 years covering main US) for quantifying and analyzing the drought; Modeled the effect of drought on yield, GDP, ecological and agricultural plant health, and population dynamics using restricted cubic splines. Research Assistant - Funded by IOS Press March 2016 - June 2016 STKO Lab, UCSB (Dr. Krzysztof Janowicz) Designed and implemented an interface for visualizing and editing linked data of academic publications. Research Assistant - Funded by NSF July 2015 - September 2015 STKO Lab, UCSB (Drs. Krzysztof Janowicz and John W.I.Lee) Digitized the data of Tribute Lists, Athenian; Researched on the relations among tributes in Athenian Empire from 478-404 BC. Research Assistant September 2013 - February 2014 Spatial Research Group, PITT (Dr. Stephen Hirtle) Researched on dynamic visualization of social network from an aesthetic perspective; Analyzed the pattern of trending venues in Foursquare. Research Assistant January 2013 - April 2014 Geoinformatics Laboratory, PITT (Dr. Hassan Karimi) Studied on automatic landmark generation for human navigation using supervised leanring methods; Involved in designing, implementing and debugging the Personalized Accessibility Map; Investigated on pedestrian navigation, especially for visually impaired and wheel chair users, and implemented the Pedestrian Navigation Services. Course Project April 2013 - June 2013 CS2750: Machine Learning, PITT (Dr. Rebecca Hwa) Conducted research on predicting the states of human brains (i.e. rests; graphics and numbers) using machine learning algorithms. TEACHING Instructor Summer 2018 GEOG 176A: Introduction to GIS, UCSB Teaching assistant: Behazd Vahedi Guest Lecturer Spring 2018, Spring 2017 GEOG 176C: GIS Applications, UCSB Guest Lecturer Winter 2017 GEOG 178/258: Conceptual Modeling and Programming for the Geo-Sciences, UCSB Teaching Assistant Spring 2017 GEOG 176C: GIS Applications, UCSB Teaching Assistant Winter 2016 GEOG 178/258: Conceptual Modeling and Programming for the Geo-Sciences, UCSB Teaching Assistant Fall 2015, Fall 2014 GEOG 176A: Introduction to GIS, UCSB Instructor: Dr.Werner Kuhn
Teaching Assistant Summer 2015 GEOG 176A: Introduction to GIS, UCSB Instructor: Yingjie Hu Teaching Assistant Spring 2015 GEOG 172: Intermediate Geographical Data Analysis, UCSB Instructor: Dr.Phaedon Kyriakidis Teaching Assistant Winter 2015 GEOG 3A: Ocean and Atmosphere, UCSB Instructor: Dr.Tommy Dickeys PUBLICATIONS Peer-reviewed Journal Articles Zhu, R., Hu, Y., Janowicz, K., & McKenzie, G., (2016). Spatial Signature for Geographic Feature Types: Examining Gazetteer Ontologies using Spatial Statistics. Transactions in GIS, 20(3), 333-355. Zhu, R., & Karimi, H. A. (2014). Automatic Selection of Landmarks for Navigation Guidance. Transactions in GIS, 19(2), 247-261. Davis A.W., E.C. McBride, K. Janowicz, Zhu, R., and K.G. Goulias (2017) A Tour-based Path Analysis of Long Distance Non-commute Travel Behavior in California. presented at the 97th Annual Transportation Research Board Meeting, January 7-11, 2018, Washington D.C. and inclusion in the TRB proceeding. Karimi, H. A., Jiang, M., & Zhu, R. (2013). trends. Geomatica, 67(4), 259-271 Pedestrian navigation services: challenges and current Li, Z., Zhang, X., Clarke, K. C., Liu, G., & Zhu, R. (2018). An automatic variogram modeling method with high reliability fitness and estimates.computers & Geosciences (in press). Li, Z., Zhang, X., Clarke, K., Zhu, R., Liu G., He, Z., Weng, Z., Zhang, Z.,(2018). Genetic Kriging: An alternative kriging with locally varying anisotropy. Computers and Geosciences. (in revision) Burchfield, E., Touma, D., Stiefel, M., Zhu, R., Krapu, C., Nay, J., (2018). Crop yield variability by water stress intensity in the U.S. over the past thirty years. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. (under review) Peer-reviewed Conference Articles Zhu, R., Kyriakidis, P., and Janowicz, K. (2017). Beyond Pairs: Generalizing the Geo-dipole for Quantifying Spatial Patterns in Geographic Fields. AGILE 2017 Conference on Geographic Information Science (BEST FULL PAPER AWARD). Janowicz, K., Hu, Y., McKenzie, G., Gao, S., Regalia, B., Mai, G., Zhu, R., Adams, B., & Taylor, K. (2016). Moon landing or safari? a study of systematic errors and their causes in geographic Linked Data, In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience 2016), Sep. 27-30, Montreal, Canada. Zhu, R., Janowicz, K., Yan, B., and Hu, Y.(2016). Which Kobani? A Case Study on the Role of Spatial Statistics and Semantics for Coreference Resolution Across Gazetteers. GIScience 2016 Short Paper Proceedings. Ninth International Conference on Geographic Information Science. Montreal, Canada. Gao, S., Zhu, R., and Mai, G. (2016). Identifying Local Spatiotemporal Autocorrelation Patterns of Taxi Pick-ups and Drop-offs. GIScience 2016 Short Paper Proceedings. Ninth International Conference on Geographic Information Science. Montreal, Canada. Yan, B., Janowicz, K., Mai, G., and Zhu, R. (2018): xnet+sc: Classifying Places Based on Images by Incorporating Spatial Contexts. GIScience 2018: 10th International Conference on Geographic Information Science. Melbourne, Australia
Janowicz, K. Yan, B, Regalia, B., Zhu, R., and Mai, G. (2018): Debiasing Knowledge Graphs: Why Female Presidents are not like Female Popes. International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) 2018. Monterey, USA Book Chapters Janowicz, K., McKenzie, G., Hu, Y., Zhu, R., and Gao, So. (2018): Using Semantic Signatures for Social Sensing in Urban Environments. Mobility Patterns, Big Data and Transport Analytics. PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS Oral presentation: Quantifying Semantic Uncertainties of Volunteered Geographic Information to Understand Human Travel Behaviors, 15th International Conference on Travel Behavior Research, July 15-20, 2018, Santa Barbara, California, USA. Oral presentation: Adopting Semantic Signatures to Quantify the Uncertainty of Volunteered Geographic Information, 13th International Symposium of Spatial Accuracy, May 21-25, 2018, Beijing, China. (BEST STUDENT PAPER PRESENTATION AWARD). Oral presentation: Utilizing Multiple-point Geostatistics to Model Higher-order Geospatial interactions, in 2018 Annual meeting of AAG, April 10-14, 2018, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Oral presentation: Quantifying the Attractiveness of Destinations for Modeling Long Distance Travel Patterns, in NSF Mobility Science Workshop, May 11-12, 2017, Columbus, Ohio, USA. Oral presentation: From the Geo-dipole to the Geo-multipole: A Framework of Applying Multiple-Point (Geo)Statistics for Geographic Field Analysis, in 2017 Annual Meeting of AAG, April 5-9, 2017, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Lightning talk: IChing and Geography, at 2017 Spatial@UCSB Lightning Talks, February 28, 2017, Santa Barbara, California, USA. Poster presentation: Which Kobani? A Case Study on the Role of Spatial Statistics and Semantics for Coreference Resolution Across Gazetteers, in the Ninth International Conference in Geographic Information Science, September 27- September 30, 2016, Montreal, Canada. Oral presentation: Understanding the semantics of places in gazetteers via spatial analysis, in 2016 Annual Meeting of AAG, March 29- April 4, 2016, San Francisco, California, USA. Oral presentation: Spatial signatures for geographic feature types: Examining gazetteer ontologies using spatial statistics, in 2016 Esri User Conference: GIScience Frontier Research Session, June 27-July 1, 2016, San Diego, California, USA. Poster presentation: Spatial signatures for geographic feature types: Examining gazetteer ontologies using spatial statistics, in The 12th Semantic Web Summer School, July 17-July 23, 2016, Bertinoro, Italy. INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCE Internship February 2012 - June 2012 Beijing LIBOVITO Environmental Technology Co.Ltd Took charge of data preprocessing for analyzing and predicting air quality using AURORA system; Organized and participated in the workshop of AURORA Environmental Air Quality Intelligent Monitoring System in Yangzhou City, China (This workshop is co-organized with VITO, a research institution in Belgium)
MEMBERSHIPS AND SERVICES Local committee for the 8th International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT 2018) October 15-18, 2018 Chair of Machine Learning-Fundamentals Workshop at 15th International Conference on Travel Behavior Research July 16th, 2018 Member of International Spatial Accuracy Research Association 2018 - present Student Director of AAG Geographic Information Science and Systems (GISS) Specialty Group 2018-2019 Organizer of the Session of Deep Learning in Geospatial Patterns and Applications April 14, 2018 Organizer of the Session of Uncertainties in Spatial Patterns at AAG2017 April 7, 2017 Member of the International Association of Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG) 2016 - Present Member of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) 2014 - Present Reviewer for International Journal of Geographic Information Science 2017 - Present Reviewer for Applied Geography 2017 - Present Reviewer for Professional Geography 2016 - Present Reviewer for Transactions in GIS 2013 - Present Local committee for SPATIAL 2015, Center for Spatial Studies, UCSB December 9-11, 2015 Event Committee at Geography Department, UCSB 2015 - Present Coffee Committe at Geography Department, UCSB 2014-2015 Outreach Committee at Geagraphy Department, UCSB 2014-2015 FELLOWSHIPS & TRAVEL GRANTS Jack Dangermond travel grant for International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC), 2018 Fall UCSB Research Mentoring Program (RMP) fellowship, 2018 Summer Student travel fellowship from 15th International Conference on Travel Behavior Research, 2018 Summer Student travel fellowship from 13th International Sympothesis of Spatial Accuracy, 2018 Spring Jack Dangermond travel grant for International Conference of Spatial Accuracy, 2018 Spring Jack Dangermond travel grant for AAG, 2018 spring NSF travel grant for Workshop on Analyzing Movement and Mobility Within Geographic Context, May 2017 NSF travel grants for Graduate Pursuits at National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), August 2016, January 2017, April 2017 UCSB Graduate Student Association travel award, March 2017 Jack Dangermond travel grant for AAG, 2017 winter Jack Dangermond travel grant for GISceince 2016, 2016 Fall Jack Dangermond travel grant for AAG, 2016 winter Jack Dangermond travel grant for Semantic Web Summer School, 2016 Summer HONORS Best Student Presentation Award May, 2018 13th International Symposium of Spatial Accuracy, Beijing, China Graduate Research Fellow August, 2017 National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), Annapolis, MD Best Paper Award May, 2017 20th International Conference on Geo-Information Science (AGILE 2017), Wageningen, Netherlands Scholarships for Excellent Students Fall 2011, Spring 2011
Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan, China First Prize in Shanxi Division and National Excellent Award, the Second National College Student Electronic Commerce Competition November, 2011 Xi an Jiaotong University Excellent Team Award, the Eleventh Enterprise Simulation Competition March, 2011 Guanghua School of Management, Peking University Second Prize, National College Student Mathematical Modeling Competition September, 2010 Shanxi Divison, China Outstanding Student Leader May, 2010 Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan, China