Bio
Dr. Dev Raj Paudyal has worked as a University Lecturer at the School of Surveying and Built Environment, University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ), Australia, since 2011. Dr Paudyal holds an M.Sc. in Geoinformation Management (with a specialisation in Land Administration) from ITC, the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ), Australia. He worked as a Research Scholar at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University (2015–2016). Dr Paudyal served as the President of the International Geospatial Society (2013–2015) and Co-Chair of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS)-WGIV/4: (Geospatial Data Infrastructure, 2012–2016). He has been working as Co-Chair of ISPRS-WGIV/4 (SDI: Internet of Things and Spatial Decision Support) and was a Board Director of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Association and a delegate of the GSDI Association Council. In addition to this, Dr Paudyal is a member of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS), a member of the International Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) group, a member of the Mixed Methods International Research Association (MMIRA), and a life member of the Nepal Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Society. He is Associate Editor of ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (IJGI). Dr Paudyal has more than 25 years of professional and research experience, including 10 years of full-time industry experience in Nepal's Survey Department (National Mapping Agency) and 15 years of teaching and research experience in Australia, India, and Nepal. He has supervised twenty-five successful postgraduate and honours students and is currently supervising eight PhD students and five honours students. Dr Paudyal has also been consulted on SDI, application of geospatial information in disaster risk management, land administration, and spatial data management by the Ministry of Land Reform and Management, Kathmandu University, Tribhuwan University, Institute of Engineering, and the World Bank.

Talk
The Second-Dimension Spatial Association: Concepts and Applications

Bio
Dr. Yongze Song is a Senior Lecturer at Curtin University. He is a RGS Fellow (UK), DAAD AInet Fellow (Germany), and a Committee Member of the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG). Yongze leads a Geospatial Analysis and AI team, maintaining strong industry networks and delivering industry-driven research projects about sustainable infrastructure management using emerging technologies. He developed more than 16 new geospatial methods and eight R software packages with over 120,000 downloads for understanding geographical and spatial data. He is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, GIScience & Remote Sensing, and All Earth, and an Editor for the Geoscientific Model Development and Journal of Spatial Science. He is a recipient of more than ten awards at international and national levels, such as the Geospatial World 50 Rising Stars, the Global Top 10 Young Scientist Award, the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University, and the Australian National Location Data First Prize.

Talk
GeoAI in Earth and Environmental Science

Bio
Dr. Wenwen Li is a Professor at the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Her research interest is geographic information science, focusing on developing integrated and smart cyberinfrastructure to revolutionize knowledge discovery in environmental and social sciences. In recent years, she has been pioneering the integration of AI with geospatial sciences and has developed a series of spatial explicit GeoAI models for environmental analysis. Dr. Li’s research was funded by multiple funding agencies. She received the US National Science Foundation’s early CAREER and Mid-Career Advancement awards. She is also a Fellow of the American Association of Geography (AAG) and the University Consortium of Geographic Information Science.

Talk
Mitigating Human-Elephant Conflict in Southern Africa using Geospatial Analysis of Bull Elephant Movements

Bio
Prof. Dr. Marguerite Madden is a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia (UGA) and Director of the Center for Geospatial Research (CGR). She holds Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Biology from the State University of New York and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Georgia. Since the late 1970s, she has conducted research combining geospatial data and analyses with landscape ecology, particularly focused on human–animal–environment interactions. Joining the UGA-CGR in 1985, she developed and analyzed numerous multi-temporal and detailed vegetation databases for local and regional conservation lands. Professor Madden is an American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Past President (2007) and Editor of the 2009 ASPRS Manual of GIS. She served as the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) Commission IV, “Digital Mapping and Geodatabases” Technical President (2008–2012), ISPRS Council Second Vice President (2012-2016) and Treasurer of The ISPRS Foundation (2010–2022). She is a Fellow of ASPRS (2010) and ISPRS (2020), and a recipient of a NASA Silver Achievement Medal (2018), ASPRS Life-Time Achievement Award (2020) and AAG Remote Sensing Specialty Group Outstanding Contributions to Remote Sensing Award (2021). Since 2020, she has served on the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Geographical and Geospatial Sciences Committee.