• [05/2021] I will be interning at X, the moonshot factory (formerly Google[X]) as an AI Resident. Super excited to join the team!

• [04/2021] Our full research paper is accepted for PNAS.

• [04/2021] Our full research paper is accepted for Transactions in GIS.

• [03/2021] Our conference paper is accepted for IEEE IGARSS 2021.

• [01/2021] Our full research paper is accepted for IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.

• [12/2020] The extended abstract about our federated learning work is accepted for Esri User Conference and Transactions in GIS.

• [11/2020] Our extended abstract and slide are now available at AutoCarto 2020 Program.

• [09/2020] Our full research paper is accepted for CEUS.

• [09/2020] Our full research paper is now published on JAMA Network Open.

• [08/2020] I start to work as a Research Assistant in Department of Geography, UW-Madison.

• [08/2020] I finished my internship at Sturfee Inc.. I had a fruitful intern experience here!

• [07/2020] Our full research paper is now published on Land Use Policy.

• [06/2020] Our invited paper is now published on ACM SIGSPATIAL Special.

• [06/2020] I start my internship as a Geospatial Vision Intern at Sturfee Inc., supervised by Dr. Jiangye Yuan.

• [05/2020] Our conference paper is accepted for GIScience 2021.

• [05/2020] Our Tracking Mobility Changes Interactive Web Portal is released! Check it out and join the fight against COVID-19!

• [02/2020] Our two conference papers are accepted for AutoCarto 2020.

Professional Services

• Reviewer for Scientific Reports.

• Reviewer for BMC Public Health.

• Reviewer for Computers & Geosciences.

• Reviewer for Transactions in GIS.

• Reviewer for Habitat International.

• Reviewer for Land Use Policy.

• Moderator for Meetup for International Graduate Students and Early Career Geographers @ 2021 AAG Annual Meeting.

• Curriculum Committee Member in Department of Geography, UW-Madison.

• Volunteer for the 2020 Wisconsin Land Information Association (WLIA) 33rd Annual Conference.

• Volunteer for the International Forum for Geospatial Education in ERASMUS+ GeoServices-4-Sustainability Project.

• Network Center Assistant in School of Resource and Environmental Sciences, Wuhan University.

Honors & Awards

• [2018-2019] Outstanding Graduate Student - Wuhan University.

• [2016-2017] National Scholarship, China.

• [2014-2015] National Scholarship, China.

• [2014-2015] The 1st Prize Scholarship - Wuhan University.

• [2012-2013] The 2nd Prize Scholarship - Wuhan University.

• [2019] Best Poster Paper - ACM SIGSPATIAL 2019 RAAS Workshop.

• [2019] Welcome Award - University of Wisconsin-Madison.

• [2017] Silver Award - The 3rd China College Students’ ‘Internet+’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, Hubei Final.

• [2017] The 1st Prize & The 2nd Prize - The 3rd Wuhan University ‘Internet+’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.

• [2015] The 2nd Prize - The 21st Foreign Language Translation Competition, Hubei.

• [2014] National 3rd Prize & Wuhan 1st Prize - The 12th SuperMap Cup University GIS Contest.

("*" = Research Supervisor; "✉" = Corresponding Author)

2021

• Rao, J., Gao, S.*✉, Li, M. and Huang, Q. (2021). A Privacy-Preserving Framework for Location Recommendation Using Decentralized Collaborative Machine Learning. Transactions in GIS. (Accepted)

• Peng, N., Xi, Y., Rao, J., Ma, X., and Ren, F✉. (2021). Urban Multiple Route Planning Model Using Dynamic Programming in Reinforcement Learning. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. (Accepted)

2020

• Rao, J.✉, Gao, S.*, Kang, Y. and Du, Q. (2020). Landmarks as Beacons: Pedestrian Navigation Based on Landmark Detection and Mobile Augmented Reality. AutoCarto 2020.

• Rao, J., Gao, S.*✉, Kang, Y. and Huang, Q. (2020). LSTM-TrajGAN: A Deep Learning Approach to Trajectory Privacy Protection. In the Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience 2021), pp. 1-16.

• Wu, C., Peng, N., Ma, X., Li, S., and Rao, J.✉. (2020). Assessing multiscale visual appearance characteristics of neighbourhoods using geographically weighted principal component analysis in Shenzhen, China. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems. (Accepted)

• Du, T., Rao, J., Peng, R. and Du, Q*✉. (2020). Multi-Source Geographic Data Efficient Quality Inspection System Based on Python. Journal of Geomatics 45 (2), 1-6.

• Gao, S.*✉, Rao, J., Kang, Y., Liang, Y., Kruse, J, Dopfer, D., Sethi, A., Reyes, F., Yandell, B. and Patz J. (2020). Association of Mobile Phone Location Data Indications of Travel and Stay-at-Home Mandates With COVID-19 Infection Rates in the US. JAMA Network Open. 2020;3(9):e2020485.

• Gao, S.*✉, Rao, J., Kang, Y., Liang, Y. and Kruse, J. (2020). Mapping county-level mobility pattern changes in the United States in response to COVID-19. SIGSPATIAL Special 12 (1), 16-26.

• Kang, Y.✉, Rao, J., Peng, B., Gao, S.*, Roth, R. and Zhang F. (2020). Towards Cartographic Knowledge Encoding with Deep Learning: A Case Study of Building Generalization. AutoCarto 2020.

• Kang, Y., Zhang, F.✉, Peng, W., Gao, S.*, Rao, J., Duarte, F. and Ratti, C. (2020). Understanding house price appreciation using multi-source big geo-data and machine learning. Land Use Policy, 10 (4), 9-19.

• Kang, Y., Gao, S.*✉, Liang, Y., Li, M., Rao, J., and Kruse, J. (2020). Multiscale Dynamic Human Mobility Flow Dataset in the US during the COVID-19 Epidemic. arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.12238.

2019

• Rao, J.✉, Yu, J., Zhu, X., Du, T. and Ren, F. (2019). An Algorithm For Removing Invalid Pixels In Remote Sensing Images Based On Vector Boundary Extraction. Journal of Geomatics.

• Gao, S.*✉, Rao, J., Liu, X., Kang, Y., Huang, Q. and App, J. (2019). Exploring the effectiveness of geomasking techniques for protecting the geoprivacy of Twitter users. Journal of Spatial Information Science, 2019(19), 105-129.

• Gao, S.*✉, Li, M., Rao, J., Mai, G., Prestby, T., Marks, J. and Hu, Y. (2019). Automatic Urban Road Map Generation from Massive GPS Trajectories of Taxis. BGD19.

• Liang, Y., Gao, S.*✉, Li, M., Kang, Y. and Rao, J. (2019), November. Analyzing the Gap Between Ride-hailing Location and Pick-up Location with Geographical Contexts. The 1st ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Ride-hailing Algorithms, Applications, and Systems. (Best Poster Paper)

2017

• Rao, J., Qiao, Y., Ren, F., Wang, J. and Du, Q.*✉ (2017). A Mobile Outdoor Augmented Reality Method Combining Deep Learning Object Detection and Spatial Relationships for Geovisualization. Sensors, 17(9), 1951.

• Qiao, Y., Rao, J., Wang, J., Du, Q.*✉ and Ren, F. (2017). Geographic Object Detection for Outdoor Augmented Reality. Geomatics World, 5, 011.