Ran Tao 陶然
Assistant Professor of GIScience
School of Geosciences, University of South Florida
E-mail: rtao AT usf.edu
Let the maps speak for themselves
Concentration
Geographic Information Science | spatial interactions | spatial statistics | data mining | geovisualization | geocomputation | movement & mobility analysis | migration | smart city | urban shrinkage | conflicts & territories
Profile
Dr. Ran Tao is an assistant professor at the School of Geosciences, University of South Florida. His research centers on GIScience methods and applications, especially in movement analysis, travel behaviors, and spatial interaction phenomena. So far, he has developed a series of spatial flow data analytical methods that blend the latest techniques in spatial statistics, data mining, geovisualization, and geocomputation. His research has been sponsored by NSF, USDOT, and USF Research & Innovation. His works have been published in top-tier journals, such as IJGIS, CEUS, Geographical Analysis. Besides, he is leading or engaged in interdisciplinary research projects that exert the power of GIS and spatial analysis, such as human travel behaviors, migration forced by natural disasters, shrinking city phenomena, location optimization of key infrastructure, and disease transmission surveillance. Dr. Tao has been actively serving the professional community. He was the 21-22 chair of AAG Specialty Group Cyberinfrastructure. He also serves as the NSF proposal reviewer, and guest editor of special issues on Applied Sciences and IJGI.
Education
Ph.D. 2017. Geography and Urban Regional Analysis, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
B.E. 2012. Remote Sensing Science and Technology, Wuhan University, China
Recent Publications
Ran Tao, Yuzhou Chen, Jean-Claude Thill. (2023). Spatiotemporal Association in Flow Data: A Space-Time Flow LISA Approach. Computer, Environment and Urban Systems. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2023.102042
Ran Tao, Jinwen Xu. (2023). Mapping with ChatGPT. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information: 12(7), 284
Nasser Al-Qattan, Gregory Herbert, Howard J. Spero, Sean McCarthy, Ryan McGeady, Ran Tao, Anne-Marie Power. (2023). Stable Isotope Sclerochronology-Based Forensic Reconstruction of the MH370 Debris Drift Path. AGU Advances.
Yuzhou Chen, Qiwei Ma, Zhaoya Gong, Ran Tao* (2023). Exploring the Spatiotemporal Relationships Between Search Flows and Travel Flows. Transactions in GIS
Lauren Carter and Ran Tao* (2023). Evaluating COVID-19’s Impacts on Puerto Rican’s Travel Behaviors. Geo-Spatial Information Science.
Ran Tao and Yuzhou Chen. (2022). Applying Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA) to Analyze Longitudinal Data: The Absolute Perspective. Geographical Analysis.
Yuzhou Chen and Ran Tao* (2022). A New Urban Detection Method based on the Local G and Local Spatial Heteroscedasticity Statistics. Transactions in GIS.
Yuzhou Chen, Ran Tao*, and Joni Downs. (2022). Location Optimization of COVID-19 Vaccination Sites: Case in Hillsborough County, Florida. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Danhuai Guo, Shiyin Ge, Shu Zhang, Song Gao, Ran Tao, Yangang Wang. (2022). DeepSSN: A Deep Convolutional Neural Network to Assess Spatial Scene Similarity. Transactions in GIS.
Aynaz Lotfata, Ran Tao, Yanfang Su. (2022) Evaluating the walking accessibility of Cook County’s public schools to use as open space. International Journal of Urban Sciences: 1-18.
Ran Tao. (2021). Big Spatial Flow Data Analytics. In Handbook of Big Geospatial Data. (pp. 163-183). Springer, Cham.
Ran Tao, Joni Downs, Theresa M. Beckie, Yuzhou Chen, Warren McNelley. (2020). Examining Spatial Accessibility to COVID-19 Testing Sites in Florida. Annals of GIS (2020): 1-9.
Ran Tao, Jean-Claude Thill. (2020). BiFlowLISA: Measuring Spatial Association for Bivariate Flow Data. Computer, Environment and Urban Systems. 83: 101519.
Qiwei Ma, Zhaoya Gong, Jing Kang, Ran Tao, Anrong Dang. (2020). Measuring Functional Urban Shrinkage with Multi-Source Geospatial Big Data: A Case Study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Megaregion. Remote Sensing. 2020, 12: 2513.
Ran Tao, Zhaoya Gong, Qiwei Ma, Jean-Claude Thill. (2020). Boosting Computational Performance in Spatial Flow and Network Data Analysis with Head/Tail Breaks. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 9(5): 299.
Ran Tao, Jean-Claude Thill. (2019). Flow Cross K-function: A Bivariate Flow Analytical Method. International Journal of Geographical Information Science: 1-17.
Ran Tao, Jean-Claude Thill. (2019). flowAMOEBA: Identifying Regions of Anomalous Spatial Interactions. Geographical Analysis. 51(1): 111–130.