Qihao Weng

Biography

Dr. Qihao Weng is the Director of the Center for Urban and Environmental Change and a Professor of geography at Indiana State University, USA. He was a visiting NASA Senior Fellow (2008-09). Dr. Weng is also a Guest/Adjunct Professor at Peking University, Wuhan University, and Beijing Normal University, and a guest research scientist at Beijing Meteorological Bureau, China. He received an A.S. in geography from Minjiang University, China, in 1984, an M.S. in physical geography from South China Normal University in 1990, an M.A. in geography from the University of Arizona in 1996, and a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Georgia in 1999. At the same year, he joined the University of Alabama as an assistant professor. Since 2001, he has been a member of the faculty in the Department of Geography, Geology, and Anthropology at Indiana State University, where he has taught five courses on remote sensing, digital image processing, remote sensing-GIS integration and two courses on GIS and environmental modeling, and has mentored 10 doctoral and 7 master students.

Dr. Weng’s research focuses on remote sensing and GIS analysis of urban ecological and environmental systems, land-use and land-cover change, environmental modeling, urbanization impacts, and human-environment interactions. Dr. Weng is the author of over 130 peer-reviewed journal articles and other publications, as well as 5 books (Urban Remote Sensing; Remote Sensing of Impervious Surfaces; Remote Sensing and GIS Integration; Advances in Environmental Remote Sensing; An Introduction to Contemporary Remote Sensing). He has worked extensively with optical and thermal remote sensing data, and more recently with LiDAR data, primarily for urban heat island study, land-cover and impervious surface mapping, urban growth detection, image analysis algorithms, and the integration with socioeconomic characteristics, with financial support from US funding agencies that include NSF, NASA, USGS, USAID, NOAA, National Geographic Society, and Indiana Dept of Natural Resources. Dr. Weng was the recipient of the Robert E. Altenhofen Memorial Scholarship Award by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (1999), the Best Student-Authored Paper Award by the International Geographic Information Foundation (1998), and the 2010 Erdas Award for Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing by ASPRS (1st place). At Indiana State University, he received the Theodore Dreiser Distinguished Research Award in 2006 (the university’s highest research honor) and was selected as a Lilly Foundation Faculty Fellow in 2005 (one of the six recipients). In May 2008, he received a prestigious NASA senior fellowship, allowing him to work at Marshall Space Flight Center on the concept development of a new hyperspectral sensor and its applications. Recently, Dr. Weng was named as the 2011 recipient of Outstanding Contributions Award in Remote Sensing sponsored by American Association of Geographers (AAG) Remote Sensing Specialty Group. Dr. Weng has given over 70 invited talks (including colloquia, seminars, keynote address and public speech), and has presented over 100 papers at professional conferences (including co-presenting).

Dr. Weng is the Task Leader for GEO’s SB-04, Global Urban Observation and Information (2012-15). In addition, he serves as an Associate Editor of ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and Spatial Hydrology, and is the series editor for both Taylor & Francis Series in Remote Sensing Applications and McGraw-Hill Series in GIS&T. His past service included as a National Director of American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (2007-2010), Chair of AAG China Geography Specialty Group (2010-2011), and the Secretary of ISPRS Working Group VIII/1 (Human Settlement and Impact Analysis, 2004-08), as well as a panel member of U.S. DOE’s Cool Roofs Roadmap and Strategy in 2010.

Websites

• Qihao Weng

Books