SDSC at AAG 2026 in San Francisco

The Spatial Data Science Center (SDSC) demonstrated a strong presence at the 2026 American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, held in San Francisco from March 17-21, 2026. Representing the cutting edge of spatial science, 3 faculty members and 7 graduate students shared their latest research across mobility, public health, local spatial modeling, and causal inference.

Presentations from SDSC members included:

• Weining Kan: Who Cancels Trips and Why? Quantitative Evidence on Post-Pandemic Mobility in Later Life
• Hanbin Wang: On Spatially Clustered Regression: An Empirical Comparison of Existing Methods
• Dr. Ziqi Li: The explicit fairness but implicit bias in mortgage lending in Florida
• Ju He: The Causal Effect of Distance on Spatial Outcomes
• Zhipeng Li: Why Place Matters: Revisiting Spatial Contextual Effects through Causal Inference
• Chen-Lun Kao: Uncovering Local Spatial Context via Multiscale Geographically Weighted Binomial Regression
• Dr. Amber DeJohn: Negotiating Mobility: Methodological Insights from Older Adults' Activity Diaries
• Dr. Mehak Sachdeva: Dynamic Social Encounters and the Shifting Landscape of Urban Political Polarization
• Stephen Liwur: After the flames and smoke, then what? Spatial analysis and heterogeneity modeling of bushfire effects on vegetation health and air quality in Ghana
• Md Abdul Fattah: Incorporating "Eligibility Constraints" in Spatial Access Modeling and Introducing Rational Agent Access Model (eRAAM)

SDSC members were also recognized for excellence in research and service within AAG specialty groups:

• Stephen Liwur won the Health Data Visualization Award organized by the Health and Medical Geography Specialty Group (HMGSG)
• Weining Kan was elected Graduate Student Board Member (2026-2028) of the Health and Medical Geography Specialty Group (HMGSG) of the American Association of Geographers
• Dr. Ziqi Li was elected Board Member (2026-2029) of the Spatial Analysis and Modelling (SAM) Specialty Group

SDSC also hosted a social event on March 18 at the Press Club in San Francisco together with the FSU Department of Geography. The gathering brought together more than 25 students, faculty, and alumni from SDSC and the department, along with Dr. Taylor Oshan (University of Maryland) and Dr. Levi Wolf (University of Bristol), both former advisees and collaborators of Center Director Dr. A. Stewart Fotheringham.

Photos from the SDSC and FSU Geography gathering at AAG 2026: