Professor Qunshan Zhao wins prestigious Young Scholar Award

Congratulations to our Deputy Director Professor Qunshan Zhao, who has received a CPGIS Young Scholar Award for his exemplary commitment to research and higher education.

The CPGIS (International Association of Chinese Professionals in Geographic Information Sciences) Young Scholar Award recognises young ‘rising stars’ for their research contributions to Geographic Information Science and Technology.

Professor Zhao was the only European-based researcher to receive this prestigious award.

His extensive body of research includes investigating indoor overheating risks in deprived areas in London and Glasgow; estimating building energy efficiency for net-zero carbon transition; improving understanding of the driving and charging behaviours of electric vehicle drivers; using mobile phone data to understand human mobilities in the urban environments; creating a research-ready traffic dataset that sheds light on city traffic patterns and low emission zone policy in Glasgow; and exploring the modelling of urban slums in Global South settings.

Professor Zhao’s work has received extensive media coverage by global outlets like the BBC, New Scientist, and The Mirror.

In addition to his research, Professor Zhao is passionate about supporting education. As founding director of the MSc in Urban Analytics programme at the University of Glasgow, he has achieved significant student recruitment, including establishing the Data Lab scholarship programme since 2019, along with a unique MSc and PhD exchange programme with Aalto University in Finland.

Professor Zhao said: "It has been a great honour to receive the CPGIS Young Scholar Award, and I want to thank all my advisors, mentors, colleagues, family and friends for your always guidance, help, and support. Furthermore, I want to thank my students, postdocs, and research partners for working collectively with me on various fronts of the research.

"I have been very lucky to be in such as collegiate academic environment at Urban Big Data Centre and Urban Studies & Social Policy, to allow me develop my own research and scholarship with strong support and guidance."

Professor João Porto de Albuquerque, Director of the Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC), added: "We are delighted to see Professor Qunshan Zhao recognised with this important CPGIS award. This richly deserved accolade is a testament to the excellent and impactful data-driven urban innovation work Qunshan has led at the Urban Big Data Centre in recent years."