The Associate Director of RILS, Prof. Qihao WENG, has been honoured with the 2024 AAG Wilbanks Prize for Transformational Research in Geography on 6 March 2024. This prestigious award is presented by the American Association of Geographers (AAG), an organisation that brings together more than ten thousand members of the global geographic community. The Wilbanks Prize is awarded to geographers who have made groundbreaking contributions in the fields of Geography or GIScience, or to Science and Society more broadly.
Equally important, Remote Sensing Specialty Group (RSSG) of AAG, which is dedicated to promoting the understanding of remote sensing science, fosters dialogue and interaction among geographers in the application of remote sensing technology in various domains, including research, teaching, public service, and private enterprise, also announces Prof. WENG as the esteemed recipient of the RSSG’s Lifetime Achievement Honor Award for the year 2024, which is a testament to Prof. WENG's unparalleled contributions to the discipline of remote sensing, marked by a distinguished career encompassing ground-breaking research, dedicated education, and impactful service engagement.
Prof. Qihao WENG, a Foreign Member of The Academy of Europe (Academia Europaea), and a Fellow of IEEE, AAAS, ASPRS and AAIA, is currently a Chair Professor at the The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Associate Director of RILS, and a Global STEM Scholar. Prof. WENG worked as Director of the Center for Urban and Environmental Change and a Professor of Geography at Indiana State University, 2001-2021, and was a Senior Fellow at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 2008 to 2009. Additionally, Professor Weng is the Lead of GEO Global Urban Observation and Information Initiative, 2012-2022, and is an Editor-in-Chief of the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
Prof. WENG has defined urban remote sensing as a new field and has transformed urban environmental research with theoretical and technical advances, including novel algorithms and innovative methods for sub-pixel-scale analysis and time series imagery. His research has significantly advanced our theoretical understanding and empirical knowledge of urban heat islands, urban sprawl, urbanization effects, and urban environmental sustainability. By establishing relationships among satellite thermal infrared imagery, land surface temperature, and air temperature, his research connects remotely sensed data to urban spatial patterns, radiation budgets, and climate change. His 2004 methodology for estimating land-surface temperature from satellite-derived attributes of vegetation, developed with Lu and Schubring, has had far-reaching impacts in a range of fields, including urban geography, landscape ecology, urban planning, urban meteorology, and climatology.
The AAG will celebrate the 2024 Awards and Honors at an awards celebration during the 2024 AAG Annual Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, in April 2024.
| Research Units | Research Institute for Land and Space |
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