Main Research Direction

• GeoAI: Integrating AI with geographic theory to unlock the potential of massive spatiotemporal data, empowering smart city planning and management.
• Generative AI (AIGC): Researching AI generation methods tailored for geographic scenarios to build intelligent models and solutions.
• Next-Generation GeoAI Software: Leveraging information geography theory and AI technology to develop cutting-edge software tools, driving the intelligent upgrade of GIS.

Enrollment Information

The research group adheres to a “people-centered” philosophy, committed to providing students with a world-class research platform, an international academic perspective, and personalized growth guidance!

We warmly welcome graduate applicants with backgrounds in Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, Surveying Engineering, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, or related fields—especially those passionate about GeoAI and Generative AI (AIGC), or possessing strong programming or GIS software development skills! You will engage deeply in cutting-edge research projects, collaborate with top institutions like the University of Hong Kong and Tongji University, and pioneer innovations in smart cities and next-generation GeoAI software. 

Contact information

• Email: tzhong27[AT]njnu.edu.cn

Educational Background

• 2017 The University of Hong Kong School of Architecture Doctor of Philosophy (in the area of Geographic Information Systems and Intelligent Transportation Systems)
• 2012 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University M.Sc. in Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, School of Building and Environment
• 2010 Nanjing Normal University, School of Geographical Sciences BSc in Geographic Information Science

Research Experience

• 2023-Present, Nanjing Normal University, School of Geographical Sciences, Associate Professor
• 2018-2023, Nanjing Normal University, School of Geographical Sciences, Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer
• 2017-2018, Department of Urban Planning and Design, School of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong, Postdoctoral

Major scientific research projects undertaken (participated in)

The research team leads multiple national and international (regional) collaborative projects, offering abundant opportunities for scientific research practice. Representative projects include:

• 1) Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, National Key R&D Program “Key Technologies and Equipment for Sustainable Urban Development” Special Project, Sub-project “Research and Application Demonstration of Infrastructure Enhancement and Application Support Technologies for Digital Cities and Digital Housing Construction,” 2024YFC3808904-2, Construction of Urban Natural and Cultural Environment Datasets, April 2025 to March 2028, Ongoing, Principal Investigator
• 2) Jiangsu Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Jiangsu Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration Project, BY20250259, Research and Development of Key Technologies for Large Models in Public Safety, 2025-2026, Ongoing, Principal Investigator
• 3) Ministry of Science and Technology, National Key R&D Program “Earth Observation and Navigation” Special Project, 2021YFB3900903, Geospatial Knowledge Graph and Knowledge Base Engine, 2021-12 to 2024-11, under research, topic leader.
• 4) Ministry of Science and Technology, National Key Research and Development Program of China, Special Project of “International Cooperation in Science and Technology Innovation among Governments”, 2021YFE0112300, Research on Scenario Recognition and Construction Methods of Urban Disaster Management and Emergency Response by Integrating CIM and Big Data, 2021-10 to 2024-09, under research, project/topic backbone. (Fire Emergency Response Topic)
• 5) Open Fund Project of Key Laboratory of Geo-Environmental Monitoring in the Greater Bay Area, Ministry of Natural Resources, GZMLab-2023006, Study on Estimation of Urban Rooftop Photovoltaic Solar Energy Potential Based on SAR and Visible Remote Sensing Imagery, 2023-01 to 2025-12, in progress, project leader
• 6) National Natural Science Foundation of China, Top Project, 42271443, Automatic Design Method of Barrier-Free Map Color for People with Abnormal Color Vision, 2023-01 to 2026-12, under research, project leader of the cooperation unit.
• 7) Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education, Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions Basic Science (Natural Science) Research Top Project, 22KJB170003, Automatic Construction of Three-dimensional Pedestrian Navigation Road Network Based on “Boundary-Central Axis” Dyad, 2022-07 to 2024-06, Completed, Project Leader
• 8) The University of Hong Kong, Intelligent Address Door Plate Collaboration Project, 2024-07 to 2025-07, under research, project leader.

Main social part-time jobs

• Member, Virtual Geographic Environment Committee Chinese National Committee of the International Society for Digital Earth
• Member, Spatio-Temporal Intelligence and Public Health Committee China Geospatial Information Industry Association
• Member, Real-Scene 3D City Committee China Geospatial Information Industry Association
• Review Expert for the Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Center of the Ministry of Education
• Reviewer for authoritative domestic and international journals in geographic information science, smart cities, and urban informatics, including: Nature Cities, Sustainable Cities and Society, Cities, Transactions in GIS, International Journal of Digital Earth, Urban Informatics, Geo-spatial Information Science, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Journal of Geoinformatics, and Surveying and Mapping Science

Honors and awards

• 2025: Second Prize, Ministry of Education Award for Outstanding Scientific Research Achievements (Natural Sciences and Engineering Technology)
• 2024: Top Ten Research Progresses in Geosciences in China
• 2024: Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advances of China Society of Land Economics
• 2024: 100 Excellent Academic Achievements in Natural Sciences in Jiangsu Province
• 2023: Silver Prize of Geneva International Invention Exhibition, Second Prize of Geographic Information Science and Technology Progress Award
• 2018: Gold Prize of Geneva International Invention Exhibition

Awards for students

• 2024 China Virtual Geographic Environment Innovation Competition - Second Prize (Advisor)
• 2023 Jiangsu Provincial Higher Education Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Team Award
• 2021 SuperMap Cup University GIS Competition - Third Prize (Outstanding Advisor)
• 2020 Jiangsu Provincial Higher Education Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis in Surveying and Mapping - First Prize
• 2019 “National Library Cup” 4th Jiangsu Provincial University Surveying and Geographic Information Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition - Second Prize

Recent publications (*corresponding author)

• Jiaqi Huang, Teng Zhong*, Songshan Yue, Anthony G.O. Yeh, Min Chen, Guonian Lü, A wildfire exposure risk assessment framework combining LLM and spatial-temporal knowledge hypergraphs, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 2026, 126, 102411.
• Qin Huang, Teng Zhong*, Liangchen Zhou, Rui Zhu, Xiao Fu, Changchang Zhou, Min Chen, Guonian Lü, Unveiling city-scale urban roadside charging piles capacity: Geospatial knowledge-assisted small object detection and SDG 7-driven planning, Sustainable Cities and Society, 2025, 132, 106789.
• Jiarui Xu, Yunxuan Dai, Jiatong Cai, Haoliang Qian, Zimu Peng, Teng Zhong*, Evaluation of Urban Street Historical Appearance Integrity Based on Street View Images and Transfer Learning, ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2025, 14, 266.
• Zhong Teng, Zhang Xueying, Xu Pei, Cao Min, Chen Biyu, Liu Qiliang, Wang Shu, Yang Yizhou. Research on key technologies and service methods for cloud-native geospatial knowledge base management. Journal of Geo-Information Science, 2024, 26(9): 2013-2025
• Yuqi Han, Teng Zhong*, Anthony G.O. Yeh, Xiuming Zhong, Min Chen, Guonian Lü, Mapping Seasonal Changes of Street Greenery Using Multi-Temporal Street-View Images, Sustainable Cities and Society，2023，92, 104498.
• Zihao Zhou, Teng Zhong*, Mengyang Liu, Yu Ye*, Evaluating building color harmoniousness in a historic district intelligently: An algorithm-driven approach using street-view images. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 2023，50(7), 1838-1857.
• Zhixin Zhang, Min Chen, Teng Zhong, Rui Zhu, Zhen Qian, Fan Zhang, Yue Yang, Kai Zhang, Paolo Santi, Kaicun Wang, Yingxia Pu, Lixin Tian, Guonian Lü, Jinyue Yan, Carbon mitigation potential afforded by rooftop photovoltaic in China, Nature Communications, 2023, 14, 2347.
• Wanyue Kong, Teng Zhong*, Xin Mai, Shuliang Zhang, Min Chen, Guonian Lv. Automatic Detection and Assessment of Pavement Marking Defects with Street View Imagery at the City Scale. Remote Sensing, 2022, 14(16), 4037.
• Anthony G.O. Yeh, Teng Zhong*, Polygonization method for automatic generation of indoor and outdoor pedestrian navigation path for smart city, Journal of Transport Geography, 2021, 96, 103209.
• Teng Zhong#, Zhixin Zhang#, Min Chen, Kai Zhang, Zixuan Zhou, Rui Zhu, Guonian Lü, Jinyue Yan, A city-scale estimation of rooftop solar photovoltaic potential based on deep learning, Applied Energy, 2021, 298, 117132.
• Zian Wang, Guoan Tang, Guonian Lü, Cheng Ye, Fangzhuo Zhou, Teng Zhong*, Positional error modelling of Sky-view factor measurements within urban street canyons, Transactions in GIS, 2021, 25(4), 1970-1990.
• Teng Zhong, Cheng Ye, Zian Wang, Guoan Tang, Wei Zhang, Yu Ye, City-scale mapping of urban façade color using street-view imagery, Remote Sensing, 2021, 13(8), 1591.
• Teng Zhong#, Kai Zhang#, Min Chen, Yijie Wang, Rui Zhu, Zhixin Zhang, Zixuan Zhou, Zhen Qian, Guonian Lü, Jinyue Yan, Assessment of solar photovoltaic potentials on urban noise barriers using street-view imagery, Renewable Energy, 2021, 168: 181-194.

Partially authorized invention patents

• U.S. Patent Systems, devices, and methods to support teamwork in collaborative geographic simulation experiments US12282802B2.
• U.S. Patent Inclinometer methods and systems for generating and calibrating an in-vehicle inclination angle, US 10002469 B2. 
• PCT International Patent Systems and methods for assistant positioning and navigation based on smart address plates, WO 2019/222957 A1.
• U.S. Patent A collaborative geographical modeling platform integrating virtual objects and physical objects, US 11037374 B2. 

Partial software copyrights

• Urban Low-Altitude Airspace Management Platform Based on GeoSOT Global Partitioned Grid Coding, 2025SR1370378
• Intelligent Flight Path Planning System for Urban Low-Altitude Airspace, 2025SR1370267
• Geographic knowledge resource management tool software, 2024SR1118861
• Text-based geographic knowledge atlas construction tool software, 2024SR1120387
• Geospatial knowledge atlas quality assessment tool software, 2024SR1181738
• Geospatial Knowledge Reasoning Completion Tool Software, 2024SR1180422
• Three-dimensional walking navigation road network construction and visualization evaluation system, 2024SR1182525
• Multi-source sensor information visualization and analysis system for disaster emergency response, 2024SR1182549
• Cesium-based three-dimensional scene construction and visualization platform for large-scale urban buildings, 2022SR1058140
• Android software for complex building spatial information display based on Gaode map, 2021SR1219623