Research profile: Dr. Fan focuses on two lines of research that affect the sustainable future of a city/region/country: (1) human-natural interactions and their impact on environment and society at multiple spatial scales, particularly in cities, and (2) technology and development. Her first line of research focuses on coupled human-nature interactions in urban context, featured several federal funded projects on urbanization and sustainability in China, transitional economies in Asia, and Globalization and Southeast Asia. For the project on the transitional economies in Asia that she completed, she examined key socioeconomic and biophysical drivers, especially institutional mechanisms unique in transitional economies and global climate change, on spatiotemporal changes of urbanization and urban sustainability in Cambodia, Laos PDR, Myanmar, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, and the Asian Russia. Currently, she is examining how diverse local responses to globalization affected land transitions, particularly urbanization, and urban environmental changes across 7 Southeast Asian countries, i.e., Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam and 12 case cities. She is now leading a team of six senior researchers (1 PI, 5 co-Is) from 5 US universities, collaborating with 20+ researchers worldwide, to conduct a synthesis study on land transitions, its drivers, and socio-environmental impacts across the Urban-Rural Continuums (URC) in Southeast Asia (SEAL), funded by NASA's Land Cover Land Use Change Program. She has also led an innovative study to examine the impact of climate change and socio/environmental factors on the spreading of Dengue fever in Peru, funded by NASA's Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science (IDS) Program (CLOUD). Her second line of research examines the role of innovation for economic development in late industrializing countries, especially in East Asia and Eastern Europe and their linkages to global innovation centers, with four sub-topics: quantifying the contribution of innovation to economic development, sectoral development, global linkages through globalization of R&D and overseas returnees, and innovative city regions. While she has researched on cities and sustainability worldwide, she is interested in promoting sustainability, economic development, urban environment, and public health of local communities in regions in the US. Please also see her detailed professional profile at Google Scholar.
Major Grants (Funded by Federal Agencies)
Principal Investigator (PI) Peilei Fan (Co-PIs: Ruben Briceno, Jiquan Chen, and Furqan Irfan (MSU). 2024-27. “Climate, Land, & (Health) Outcome of Dengue Fever (CLOUD)” Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science (IDS). National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Funded: $1,491,721 (website)
Principal Investigator (PI) Peilei Fan (Co-PIs: Jiquan Chen (MSU), Atul Jain (UIUC), Soe W. Myint (TSU), Jiaguo Qi (MSU), Karen Seto (Yale U)). 2024-27. “Decoding Land Transitions across the Urban-Rural Continuums (URC): A Synthesis Study of Patterns, Drivers, and Socio-environmental Impacts in Southeast Asia (SEAL)” Land Cover and Land Use Change (LCLUC) Program, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Funded: $1,699,993 (website)
Principal Investigator (PI) Peilei Fan (Co-PI: Joseph Messina). 2020-2025. “Divergent Local Responses to Globalization: Urbanization, Land Transition, and Environmental Changes in Southeast Asia (SEAGUL)” National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Funded: $748,148
Principal Investigator (PI) Peilei Fan (Grant #: NNX15AD51G; Co-PI: Jiquan Chen; Collaborators: Nathan Moore, Joseph Messina, Dengsheng Lu). 2015-2018. “Urbanization and sustainability under global change and transitional economies: Synthesis from Southeast, East, and North Asia (SENA),” Land Cover and Land Use Change (LCLUC) Program, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) http://senacgc.org/ Funded: $749,683
[Note: please check the project website for people, publications, and data. So far, the project has resulted 3 special issues/sections of high-impact journals and > 30 peer-reviewed journal publications. It also has established an extended academic network across 7 countries in SENA with the US Scholars.]
Qi, Jiaguo, Hyndman, David W., Kramer, Daniel B., Pokhrel, Yadu N., Fan, Peilei, Messina, Joseph P., Zhao, Jinhua, McConnell, William J. 2017-2022. "Quantifying human and climate impacts on wetland ecosystems in the Lower Mekong River Basin," Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science (IDS), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Funded: $2,173,112.
Principal Investigator Peilei Fan (Grant #: NNX09AI32G; Co-PIs: Joseph Messina, Nathan Moore, Jianjun Ge, Peter Verburg). 2009-2013. “China's Urbanization and its Sustainability under Future Climate Change,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Funded: $621,496
Co-Principal Investigator Peilei Fan (PI: Yifei Sun, California State University, Northridge). 2011-2014. “Workshop on Chinese Ways of Innovation: Strategic Directions of Research on Chinese Innovation,” National Science Foundation (NSF)
Funded: $58,188