Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and Planning
Appalachian State University
Appalachian State University
I am currently an assistant professor at the Department of Geography and Planning in Appalachian State University. My research interests cover geospatial analysis and GIS application in human-environment system. Particularly, I am focusing on investigating the complex interactions between climate change, land use/cover change and water resources through many quantitative ways.
For more information, please refer to my CV or feel free to contact me at wangh4@appstate.edu.
Highlighted News
2025:
August 26th: Exciting news — Appalachian Today featured our team as recipients of the Chancellor’s Innovation Scholars Grant!
August 2nd: A new paper "Unraveling the link between riparian vegetation health and drought severity" has been published in the journal Ecological Indicators (IF: 7.4). Please check out this link.
May 29th: I'm very excited and honored to be selected as an awardee for Chancellor’s Innovation Scholars Program 2025 ($23,500)! The 3-year project is titled "Mapping the Impact of Flooding on North Carolina: Enhancing Community Resilience through an AI-Driven Social Vulnerability Index".
March 20th: I'm very excited to welcome Abigail Kratsch to our research team this coming fall semester! Abigail will be pursuing a thesis-based master’s degree in our department, supported by a GRAM scholarship.
February 18th: I am delighted to share that I have been selected as a 2025-2026 Graduate Research Assistant Mentoring Program (GRAM) Awardee! This award can be used as an opportunity to mentor talented graduate students through collaborative work on my research project "Unequal Exposure: How Climate Change Disproportionately Affects Marginalized Communities". If you are interested in this scholarship program, please feel free to reach out to me!
2024:
August 12th: I am so thrilled to join the Department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State University in August 2024! Looking forward to working and living in Boone, NC!
September 4th: A new co-authored paper "Mixed-use urban land parcels identification integrating geospatial data and machine learning" has been published in the journal Geo-spatial Information Science. Please check out this link.
October 19th: Another new co-authored paper "Multi-scale analysis of urban forests and socioeconomic patterns in a desert city, Phoenix, Arizona" has been published in the journal Scientific Reports. Please check out this link.
During my spare time, I love to go fishing, hiking, and work out. I am also a huge fan of Chinese folk music (民谣音乐). I view hobbies as an important part of my life, as they give me the enthusiasm to maintain a balance between life and work! Additionally, I am interested in researching the I Ching (易经) and Feng Shui (风水), two ancient forms of traditional Chinese culture.
Figure on the left: Fishing over Hickory Lake in 2024.
Figure on the right: A music festival in 2022.