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Department of Geography

CeGIS Funded Projects

Current Projects

2024-2025: SPARC: Exposure in Food Markets: Can Thermal Remote Sensing Be Used to Predict Changes in Food Availability and Cost? PI (Graduate Student: Morgan Boncyk, Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior; Primary Advisor – Christine Blake). USC Office of the Vice President for Research, 4,995. 5/16/2024-12/30/2025 

2023-2024: Mapping Oyster Reef habitat to Support Resilience Planning and Wild Oyster Harvest in South Carolina. CORE SC, PI: Susan Wang, Co-PI: Gary Sundin (SCNDR) ($49,902) 

2023-2024: A High-resolution inventory of South Carolina’s waterbodies from multi-source GIS products. USGS/SC Water Resources Center Competitive Grant, PI: Susan Wang, Co-PI: Alex Pellett (SCDNR) ($33,448

2023-2028, The impacts of HIV-related service interruption during COVID-19 pandemic in South Carolina, National Institutes of Health (NIH). PI: Shan Qiao, Co-I: Zhenlong Li, Jiajia Zhang, Bankole Olatosi, Sharon Weissman, Xiaoming Li.  ($3,521,311)

2022-2023, 3D Visualization of hydrogeologic raster surfaces in South Carolina Hydrogeologic Framework, USGS National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, PI: Susan Wang ($34,982) (NEW!)

2023-2024, Developing a SMART Geospatial Tool to Classify Building Archetype at Community Level towards Digital-Twins of Disaster Resilience (DTDR), Taylor Geospatial Institute,  Institutional PI: Zhenlong Li (PI: Grace Yan at Missouri S&T) ($200,000) (NEW!)

2023-2024, Visualizing and predicting new and late HIV diagnosis in South Carolina: A Big Data approach, National Institutes of Health (NIH), PI: Xiaoming Li & Jiajia Zhang, Co-I: Zhenlong Li, Bankole Olatosi, Sharon Weissman, Shan Qiao, ($699,122)(NEW!)

2023, Accessibility Analysis and Visualization of the Children and Youth Foster Care in South Carolina, South Carolina Department of Social Services (SCDSS). PI: Zhenlong Li ( $34,479) (NEW!)

2023-2024, Neighborhood Mobility Assessment for Wheelchair Users using Street View Imagery and Artificial Intelligence, USC SPARC Program. 135400-23-62713, PI: Zhenlong Li (Student: Huan Ning) ($4,992)

2023-2024, Examine the geographic and racial disparities of COVID-19 impact on obesity-related behaviors using cellphone-based place visitation data. Social, Behavioral, & Economic COVID Coordinating Center, University of Michigan, PI: Zhenlong Li, Co-I: Andrew T Kaczynski, Shan Qiao, Bankole Olatosi, Jiajia Zhang, Xiaoming Li ($29,948).

2022-2024, Developing a novel network-based big data approach to measure healthcare utilization disparity: A feasibility study, BDHSC Pilot Project Program, BDHSC-PP2022-16, PI: Zhenlong Li, Co-I: Shan Qiao, Bankole Olatosi, Jiajia Zhang  ($30,000).

2022-2023, sUAS and 3D Marsh Modeling to Support NASA’s New Satellite (SWOT) for Coastal Topography and Marsh Sustainability of South Carolina, NASA EPSCoR, PI: Susan Wang,  $34,963.

2022-2023, Delivering Comprehensive and Sustainable HIV/AIDS Clinical and Community Services to Achieve HIV Epidemic Control in Subnational Units in Nigeria (USC Subaward), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), PI: Xiaoming Li., Co-PI: Bankole Olatosi, Co-I: Zhenlong Li, Shan Qiao, Jiajia Zhang, Sharon Weissman et al. ($444,172)

2022-2023, Creating a GIS-Based Siting Tool for South Carolina Mariculture Site Selection, NOAA Sea Grant Consortium at South Carolina, PI: Zhenlong Li, Co-PI: Susan Wang, $52,620 ($34,993 from SeaGrant, $17,627 match).

2022-2023, A novel data-driven approach to empirically link structural racism and healthcare access and utilization in South Carolina, UofSC OVPR Racial Justice and Equity Research Program, 135400-22-59464, PI: Zhenlong Li,  Co-I: Shan Qiao, Bankole Olatosi, Jiajia Zhang, Xiaoming Li, $14,981

2021-2026, Patterns and Predictors of Viral Suppression: A Big Data Approach, National Institutes of Health (NIH), R01AI164947, MPI: Bankole Olatosi and Jiajia Zhang; Co-I: Zhenlong Li, Sharon Weissman, Jianjun Hu, Xiaoming Li,  ~$3,500,000

2021-2023, Identifying a COVID-19 patient cohort based on Twitter data for PASC symptoms analysis, BDHSC Pilot Project Program, #BDHSC-2021-11, PI: Shan Qiao, Co-PI: Zhenlong Li, Sharon Weissman Liang Chen, Xiaoming Li,  $34,000

2020-2023, Big Data Driven Clinical Informatics & Surveillance – A Multimodal Database Focused Clinical, Community, & Multi-Omics Surveillance Plan for COVID19, National Institutes of Health (NIH), 3R01AI127203-04S1,  Co-PI: Zhenlong Li, Sharon Weissman, Neset Hikment, Jianjun Hu, Jiajia Zhang;  MPI:  Xiaoming Li and Bankole Olatosi, $1,252,550,

2020-2023, Rapid Estimation of Visitation Activities in U.S. National Parks by Mining Big Social Media Data, USC ASPIRE Program, PI: Zhenlong Li, Co-PI: John Kupfer, $14,846

2019-2023, Big Data Analytics of HIV Treatment Gaps In South Carolina: Identification and Prediction, National Institutes of Health (NIH), R01AI127203, Co-I: Zhenlong Li, Sharon Weissman, Jianjun Hu, Jiajia Zhang; MPI:   Xiaoming Li, Bankole Olatosi, $3,259,978

2019-2023, Big Data Health Science Center (BDHSC), University of South Carolina Excellence Initiative, Zhenlong Li (Co-I, Geospatial Core), Xiaoming Li (PI), ~$3,000,000

 

Past Projects

2020-2022, RAPID: Monitoring the Spatial Spread of COVID-19 through the Lens of Human Movement using Big Social Media Data, National Science Foundation (NSF), 2028791,  PI: Zhenlong Li ,  Co-PI: Dwayne E. Porter, Xiaoming Li, $108,717

2022, Deep Learning for human settlement mapping with historical aerial photographs since the 1930s: a case study in Charleston, SC. College of Arts and Sciences, UofSC, PI: Susan Wang, $9,984.

2020-2022, A Preliminary Study of using Social Media to Monitor the Spatial Propagation of COVID-19 and Quantify the Effectiveness of the Control Measures, USC COVID-19 Funding Initiative,  PI: Zhenlong Li,  Co-PI: Bankole Olatosi, Xiaoming Li, $13,017

2020-2021, Faculty for the Future Fellowship Program, Assessment of riparian Corridor attributes in an urban watershed., Schlumberger Foundation, PI: Susan Wang; Visiting scholar: Dr. Adetoro. $89,000.

2019-2021, Drone-implemented integration of GIScience, Engineering, and Community Education for Dam Safety Assessment. USC Office of the Vice President for Research ASPIRE-II Integration Program, PI: Susan Wang; Co-PI: Sasanakul, Civil Engineering; Co-Is: Vitzilaios, Mechanical Engineering; Marsh, History; Brown, Biology. $96,797.

2019-2020, SPARC: A deep learning supported flood mapping framework that integrates remote sensing and social sensing. USC Office of the Vice President for Research, PI: Susan Wang; Graduate Student: Xiao Huang, $4,996.

2020-2021, XSEDE Startup Resource Allocation for A Scalable Online Visual Analytic System for Big Climate Data Analysis, National Science Foundation (NSF), PI: Zhenlong Li, $1,051.2

2019-2020, Analyzing Human Mobility Patterns during Hurricane Matthew Evacuation using Social Media Data, SPARC Program (Ph.D. researcher: Yuqin Jiang), PI: Zhenlong Li (Advisor), $5,000

2018-2019, Social Sensing of Disaster Extents and Impacts of Hurricane Florence, Horne LLP, PI: Zhenlong Li, $5,000

2018-2019, Satellite observations of marsh dieback events and potential environmental influences along coastal SC, 2000-2017. SC NASA EPSCoR, PI: Susan Wang, $24,981.

2017-2019, Enhancing Situational Awareness by Mining Big Social Media Data in Near-real Time for Disaster Management, USC OVPR ASPIRE I, PI: Zhenlong Li (PI), Amir Karami (Co-PI), $14,861

2018, Prototyping a Near Real-time Flood Mapping System with Social Sensing and Big Data Computing, CAS Research Initiative, PI: Zhenlong Li, $3,400

2017-2018, Computational Analysis of the US 2016 Presidential Election in Social Media, USC Office of The Provost, Co-PI: Zhenlong Li, Amir Karami (PI), $15,019

2017, When, Where, and Who: Mining Billions of Tweets to Understand Celebration Patterns of US Holidays, Magellan Scholar Program (Student Researcher: Daniel Newsome), PI: Zhenlong Li, $3,000

2017, Prototyping a Cloud-based Spatial Web Portal for Parallel Analytics of Big Climate Data, Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Testbed, PI: Zhenlong Li, Fei Hu (Co-I), $6,981

2016-2017, Developing a High-Performance Query Analytical Framework for Big Climate Data Analysis, USC ASPIRE I, PI: Zhenlong Li, $14,457

2015-2016, Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Flood Impact by Integrating Satellite, VGI, and Social Media Data: Rapid Assessment of the October Flood, USC Floods Seed Grant, PI: Zhenlong Li; Co-PI: Cuizhen Wang, Christopher Emrich, Diansheng Guo, $18,477

2015-2016, A Computational Framework for Tracking Reports, Opinions, and Feelings of People in Social Media Before, During and After a Natural Disaster, USC Floods Seed Grant,  Co-PI: Zhenlong Li, Amir Karami (PI), $12,000

2014-2015, Hadoop Middleware for Processing Big Climate Data, NASA/NSF, Co-PI: Zhenlong Li, Chaowei Yang (PI), $45,000


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