News

On October 16, 2026, the Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS) at UNC Charlotte welcomed K-12 students for a visit organized as part of the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences (EEGS) Envirothon outreach activities. The session introduced students to geospatial technologies through demonstrations of drones, an interactive sandbox, and a ground robot. […]

The Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS) participated in the third annual Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences (EEGS) Open House on October 14, 2026. Held in the McEniry lobby, the event introduced students to the department’s academic programs, research opportunities, centers, and student organizations. Dr. Yao Li and Dr. Tianyang Chen represented […]

At the invitation of Dr. Yao Li, Associate Director of Research at the Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS), Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw visited UNC Charlotte and delivered a seminar titled “Human-Centered GIScience and GeoAI” on October 9, 2026. Dr. Shaw, Chancellor’s Professor and Alvin and Sally Beaman Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, […]

The Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS) invites students, faculty, staff, and community partners to celebrate GIS Day 2026! AI is opening up new possibilities for creating maps, discovering spatial patterns, and communicating research. This year’s theme explores how human creativity and AI-powered geographic tools can work together to address real-world challenges—and help students […]

The Center for Applied GIScience (CAGIS) at UNC Charlotte is grateful to Jonathan N. McKinnon, a recently retired airline captain and longtime map collector, for his generous donation of hundreds of maps from around the world and a large map cabinet for educational use at UNC Charlotte. Jonathan first reached out to CAGIS while looking […]

We are pleased to highlight a new publication by Dr. Yao Li, Associate Director of Research at CAGIS, and collaborators in Molecular Ecology Resources: “Improving Malaria Parasite Gene Flow Inference Under Sparse Spatial Sampling.” Understanding how malaria parasites move between places is important for identifying potential transmission sources, migration corridors, and areas where interventions may […]

CAGIS is pleased to announce a new article published in Remote Sensing by Tianyang Chen, Wenwu Tang, Shen-En Chen, Craig Allan, and Navanit Sri Shanmugam. The study explores how Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) can help computers understand detailed 3D laser scans of bridges and surrounding environments. These scans contain millions of individual data points representing […]

Charlotte, NC — The Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS) is pleased to highlight recent student research presented at the 2026 UCGIS Symposium, held June 15–18, 2026, at the University of Maryland, College Park. This year’s symposium, themed “AI Everywhere!,” brought together the GIScience community to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping geospatial research, […]

The Center for Applied GIScience (CAGIS) at UNC Charlotte is pleased to support students participating in the Research Experiences and Mentorship in Urban Systems (REMUS) program. As part of their summer research experience, these students are using CAGIS resources to support their work in geospatial research, applied GIScience, data-driven analysis, and urban systems studies. The […]

Charlotte, NC — Researchers at the Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS) have received funding from the Transportation Research Board’s Rail Safety IDEA program for a new project titled RailRisk Advisor: A Web-GIS Tool for Assessing Railroad Trespassing Risk and Recommending Countermeasures. The 18-month, $100,000 project will begin on July 1, 2026, and will […]

The Center for Applied GIScience (CAGIS) is pleased to announce that the project “Digital Twins for Public Health: Coupling Human Mobility and Airflow Dynamics for Indoor Viral Transmission” has received $16,000 in funding from the UNC Charlotte School of Data Science. The project is led by Dr. Yao Li, Dr. Xuyang Li, and Dr. Don […]

Thanks everyone who joined us in recognizing the power of GIScience and the amazing community behind it. This year’s GIS Day was our most dynamic yet, filled with creativity, collaboration, and excitement! 📊 Event Highlights Your engagement made the event vibrant and inspiring! Competition Winners GeoVisualization Competition Undergraduate Competition 🥇 Monica Layug — BRIDGING THE […]

Date: November 19, 2025Time: 10AM – 2PMLocation: McEniry Hall, UNC CharlotteTheme: Exploring the Power of Geospatial AI Add to Calendar Center for Applied GIScience (CAGIS) invites students, faculty, companies, and organizations to celebrate GIS Day 2025, a global event recognizing the transformative power of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The theme of this year highlights the […]

On October 1st, 2025, the Center for Applied GIScience (CAGIS) had the opportunity to showcase some of our exciting technologies at the EEGS Open House. Our team demonstrated:Augmented Reality (AR) Sandbox – allowing participants to explore topography and water flow in real time.Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – highlighting how UAVs (i.e., drone in the demonstration) […]

Charlotte, NC — September 4, 2025. CAGIS undergraduate Natasha Kroll—a senior double major in Earth & Environmental Science and Data Science, with a minor in Statistics—has been awarded the 2025 North Carolina ArcGIS Users Group (NCAUG) Undergraduate Scholarship. The NCAUG scholarship recognizes undergraduate students whose studies and projects advance North Carolina’s geospatial industry across public […]

With the support of our department and the Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS), we are excited to announce that EEGS has become a member of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), making us the second institution in North Carolina to join after NC State. This membership means that all our students, […]

During June 23–27, 2025, CAGIS post doctoral fellow, Dr. Tianyang Chen, participated in the OSG School 2025, held at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The week-long summer school offered hands-on training in utilizing HTC system, the national-scale Open Science Pool (OSPool), to execute large-scale computing tasks essential to modern science. Integrating HTC into GIScience For CAGIS, […]

The Center for Applied GIScience (CAGIS) at UNC Charlotte was honored to welcome Dr. Marc P. Armstrong, Professor Emeritus from the University of Iowa, for a campus visit from April 30 to May 2, 2025. Nearly fifty years after earning his master’s degree from UNC Charlotte, Dr. Armstrong—a world-renowned pioneer and leading authority in GIScience—returned to campus. […]