Concentration

Geographic Information Science | GeoAI | spatial interactions | spatial statistics & data mining | mapping & geovisualization | movement & mobility analysis | 

Profile

Dr. Ran Tao is a full professor at the School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, China. Previously, he was an associate 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 NSFC, NSF, USDOT, etc. His works have been published in top-tier journals, such as Annals of the AAG, IJGIS, CEUS, JTRG, 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 2022 chair of AAG Specialty Group Cyberinfrastructure. He also serves as editorial board member of Annals of the AAG, Geographical Analysis. 

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 (Selected)

• Zhenzhi Jiao, Angela Yao, Ran Tao*, Jean-Claude Thill. (2026). Geographically Weighted Canonical Correlation Analysis: Local Spatial Associations Between Two Sets of Variables. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 1-30. 

• T M Junaid Bashar, Ran Tao*, Caleb Fernandes, Zhenzhi Jiao. (2026). Evaluating Spatial Disparities in Public EV Charging Infrastructure Across the United States. Journal of Transport Geography. 

• Peng Chen, Xiankui Yang, Feng Hao, Ran Tao*. (2026). Decoding Electric Vehicle Adoption using XGBoost and SHAP Analysis. Travel Behaviour and Society. 

• Ran Tao, Jean-Claude Thill. (2025). A Reciprocal Statistic for Detecting the Full Range of Local Patterns of Bivariate Spatial Association. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2025.2477675 

• Yuzhou Chen, Ran Tao*, Qiwei Ma, Mingshu Wang. (2025). Shrinking cities in China's urban network: a data-driven exploration of migration and investment flows. Applied Geography. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2025.103664 

• Zhenzhi Jiao, Ran Tao*. (2025). Geographical Graph Attention Networks: Spatial Deep Learning Models Based on Spatial Similarity. Transactions in GIS. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tgis.70029 

• Zhenzhi Jiao, Ran Tao*. (2025). Geographical Gaussian Process Regression: A Spatial Machine Learning Model Based on Spatial Similarity. Geographical Analysis https://doi.org/10.1111/gean.12423 

• Ran Tao, Xiankui Yang, Feng Hao, Peng Chen. (2024). Demographic Disparity and Influences in Electric Vehicle Adoption: A Florida Case Study. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment. 136: 104465. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2024.104465. 

• Yuzhou Chen, Qiwei Ma, Ran Tao*. (2024). Addressing the Fixed Effects in Gravity Model based on Origin-Destination Pairs. International Journal of Geographical Information Science. https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2024.2343763. 

• Jinwen Xu, Ran Tao*. (2024). Map Reading and Analysis with GPT-4V(ision). ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. 13(4), 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi13040127 

• Qiwei Ma, Anqi Liu, Yuzhou Chen, Ran Tao*. (2024). Border Effects for Domestic Travel in China during COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Transport Geography, 116, 103857. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103857

• 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 

• 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. (2023). Applying Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA) to Analyze Longitudinal Data: The Absolute Perspective. Geographical Analysis.