Report of accomplishments as CGA Fellow �

Sisi Wang

Spatial Sciences Institute, University of Southern California

All below achievement with credits given to the entire team - core members of CGA, SDL and FDL lab leaders

1. As the lead and coordinator, I launched and coordinated the Spatial Data Lab Fellowship and Internship programs in April 2024 – which have attracted the involvement of +70 students from +15 countries, including China, US, UK, Australia, Japan, France, Italy, Austria, Iran, Isreal, Bangladesh Tanzania, Peru, Pakistan, Ghana, and Sri Lanka.

​

I have been appointed as the Research Associate of Harvard CGA since March, 2024. Below are some of the most significant accomplishments by Jan, 2025:

2. As the mentor, I supervised 18 student interns (1 postdoc, 3 phd, 8 masters, 3 undergraduates, 3 high school) from 7 countries (US, China, Sri Lanka, Japan, Tanzania, South Korea, Austria)

3. As the principal supervisor, two of my intern students, Roshan Taneja and Yuvraj Taneja, won their NeurIPS High School Award at one of the most prestigious conferences in the domain of AI (4 out of 355 submissions).

​

4. As the organizer, trainer and coordinator, I organized the 1st joint symposium organized by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) and the International Society for Digital Earth Young Scientist Innovation Network (ISDE-YSIN) at Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida, Morocco – where the SDL lead from the Harvard CGA delivered a successful training workshop on repeatable workflows. The event attracted over 50 onsite students and 20 online participants.

5. As the program organizer, I involved to organize the 2024 International Symposium on Spatiotemporal Data Science in July 23-24, 2024 in Washington DC.

​

6. As the organizer and chair, I organized two paper sessions at AAG Hawaii, April 2024 involving the majority of CGA’s key members.

​

7. As the invited guest lecturer, I attended and delivered training in the 2024 Summer Training Workshop at Harvard CGA in July 16-19, Cambridge.

​

8. As the coordinator and facilitator, I facilitated the collaboration between Harvard CGA and EZ Routing / Google which have agreed to sponsor postdoc positions at CGA and launched research projects to broaden the impact of CGA.

​

9. As the lead and coordinator, I facilitated the research collaboration between Harvard CGA and University of Liverpool, UK in the research project “global portrait of urban vibrance based on social media data”, involving CGA key members (Devika and Lingbo)

​

10. As the PI and coordinator, I led the funding proposal on “using remote sensing data to improve water access in Northern Tanzania” involving CGA / SDL key members and Prof Subu from IQSS, which will be submitted to Gates Foundation or NSF.

​

​

11. As the leading author, published the paper “Open science 2.0: revolutionizing spatiotemporal data sharing and collaboration” involving CGA, SDL, FDL core members, affiliated lab leaders, and key collaborators.

​

​

​

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43762-025-00165-1?utm_source=rct_congratemailt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oa_20250126&utm_content=10.1007%2Fs43762-025-00165-1

Engagement plan for the next year

Based on what I achieved in the year of 2024, I will extend the below plan to broaden the impact of CGA globally:

1. Seek for externally funding opportunities via submitting research proposals to major research programs and organizations including NSF, Gates Foundation, and UN Humanitarian Programs.
2. Extend CGA’s collaboration with universities globally, for example, organizing summer courses with the Urban Design College at Wuhan University in June 2025.
3. Consolidate the current CGA’s collaboration with University of Liverpool and generate new dataset of urban vibrance index to promote Open Science.
4. Extend CGA’s industrial partnership with more companies, non-profit or non-gov organizations such GIS Corps which has the potential to become the CGA’s membership.
5. Broaden and disseminate the SDL fellowship and internship via social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Research Gate to involve more students at various levels.
6. Recruit more mentors and supervisors involving in the SDL fellowship and internship via organizing regular seminars and webinars.
7. Help with organizing the annual CGA conference in May 2025/2026 and following SDL symposium / training workshop.

​

​

​

Thanks!