Zhiyong Zhou

Zhiyong Zhou

GISer, Postdoc

University of Zurich

Biography

  • I am a postdoc in the GIS Unit of Department of Geography at University of Zurich, collaborating with Prof. Dr. Robert Weibel and Dr. Cheng Fu.
  • I hold a PhD degree in Geographic Information Science from the University of Zurich, Switzerland (defended on 20 June 2022), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Haosheng Huang and Prof. Dr. Robert Weibel, a M.E degree with Honours and a B.E degree with Honours at the School of Geography and Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) in 2018 and 2015, respectively.
  • My overall research can be summarized as Human-centered GeoAI, which is at the intersection of the field of geographic information science (GIScience), spatial cognition, and geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI). I am particularly interested in computatioanl modeling for geospatial problems and geospatial understanding for human-environment interaction.
  • The overarching goal of my research is to create a more sustainable city and society by providing more accessible, ubiquitous, and comprehensive geospatial information and knowledge.

I am currently in the job market! If my research background and experience fit your expectations for positions in either academic departments or industry, I would really appreciate that you could reach out to me.

Interests
  • Spatial data generalization
  • Smart mobility
  • Sustainable built environment
Education

  • PhD in GIScience, 2022

    University of Zurich

  • MEng in Cartography and Geographic Information Engineering, 2018

    China Unversity of Geosciences (Wuhan)

  • BEng in Geographic Information Systems, 2015

    China Unversity of Geosciences (Wuhan)

News

  • [2025-06-19] Thrilled to recieve the SNSF Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship!

  • [2025-05-17] Gave an invited talk in the Institute of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne, with the title Spatial data generalization in the GeoAI era: Cartographic communication and beyond.

  • [2025-04-01] We are organizing the 2nd CartoAI workshop at AGILE 2025.

  • [2024-12-09] Received an ICA Scholarship and won the Best Student Paper Presentation Award for early-career researchers in AsiaCarto, held in Hong Kong, China, with the oral representtion Towards the spatially aware learning of building generalization in image maps.

  • [2024-10-18] Accepted for a paper at International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation.

  • [2024-04-12] We are organizing the IndoorLBS workshop at EuroCarto 2024.

  • [2023-06-11] Accepted for a paper at ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.

  • [2023-04-01] We are organizing the CartoAI workshop at GIScience 2023.

  • [2022-07-01] Start a new SNSF project, DeepGeneralization, as a postdoc.

  • [2022-06-20] Successfully defended my thesis, titled with Hierarchical modeling of indoor spaces: Towards route communication at multiple levels of detail for navigation in buildings.

Projects

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(Geo-)Spatial Data engineering Information communication Mobility AI
DeepGeneralization

DeepGeneralization

Utilizing Deep Learning in Map Generalization

GeoText

GeoText

Geospatial information extraction from texts

PhD Project

PhD Project

Computational Hierarchy Modelling of Indoor Spaces

iSoNe

iSoNe

An Indoor Social Networking System

SmartENavi

SmartENavi

A Context-aware Indoor Emergency Navigation System

Students

  • Guojian Zou (Visiting PhD student, Tongji University), Traffic prediction using graph convolutional neural networks, 2023.10 - 2024.10.

  • Jingyi Zhou (Visiting PhD student, Nanjing Normal University), Generalizaiton of indoor navigation map, 2022.12 - 2024.12.

  • Joris Senn, Contextual operators in cartographic building generalization: A deep learning approach (Master thesis), 2024.02 - 2025.03, GIS Specialist at Wüest Partner.

  • Jan Winkler, Exploring the Swin Transformer Architecture for the Generalization of Building Footprints in Binary Cartographic Maps (Master thesis, swisstopoEDU Award 2023), 2022.05 - 2023.04, Senior Data Scientist at Datahouse AG.

  • Nicolas Belinger, Exploring Deep Learning for Deformative Operators in Vector-Based Cartographic Road Generalization (Master thesis, swisstopoEDU Award 2023), 2022.05 - 2023.04, GIS Developer at Laxio.

  • Lars Weidinger, Mobility Analytics for Sustainable Transport, Health, and Movement Ecology (Bachelor thesis), 2024.06.

  • Sebastian Gmür, GeoAI: Artificial intelligence for geographic applications (Bachelor thesis), 2023.06.

Contact