Ruixiao Yang

I am a Spatial Data Science PhD candidate in the Spatial Policy and Analysis Laboratory (SPA-Lab) at the Department of Planning and Environmental Management, where I am supervised by Dr. Ransford Antwi Acheampong and Prof. Richard Kingston. I am also the recipient of the SEED PGR Scholarship. 

Prior to my PhD study, I received my MSc degree from University College London (UCL) (Distinction) and BEng degree from King's College London (KCL). I also have professional working experience in engineering and investment banking fields in Asia and Europe.

My research interests widely incorporate the interdisciplinary areas of geographic information science and urban spatial science, including: 

• Urban Analytics
• Transport/ Human Mobility Behaviour
• Spatiotemporal Data Mining
• Artificial Intelligence for Geospatial Problems

I am particularly interested in leveraging multi-source big data, spatial analysis and machine learning techniques to understand human travel and activity behaviours in complex urban environments.

Currently, my PhD project aims to enhance the seamless transport network and optimise shared mobility service deployment in terms of improving urban accessibility, local business vibrancy, and transport decarbonisation, thereby facilitating future sustainable mobility development. This PhD research mainly consists of the following aspects:

• Applications of NLP for understanding urban geo-semantics.
• Understanding the effect of urban characteristics on travel mode choice intensity.
• Sustainable mobility hub location planning.

My research employs quantitative methodologies, mainly including:

• Spatiotemporal Analytics
• Natural Language Processing
• Graph-based learning

I contribute to the following modules as a graduate teaching assistant:

• PLAN60761 Digital Planning - Spatial and Policy Analysis
• PLAN10092 GIS & Digital Tools for Decision Making