Qianheng (Joshua) Zhang

Welcome! I am a Ph.D. student in Cartography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, advised by Prof. Song Gao in the Geospatial Data Science Lab. Previously, I worked with Prof. Bo Zhao from the University of Washington-Seattle in Humanistic GIS Lab.

My research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence and geospatial analysis, with an emphasis on large language models (LLMs), graph neural networks (GNNs), and scalable machine learning pipelines. I am particularly interested in how people interact with data—not just applying or visualizing it, but designing human-centered AI systems that support reasoning, interpretation, and decision-making.

I have applied these methods to diverse domains, including food system resilience, urban human–wildlife interactions, and benchmarking LLMs for spatial reasoning. My broader goal is to develop interpretable, ethical, and scalable geospatial AI systems that contribute to sustainability, infrastructure resilience, and human well-being.

Here you can find information about my publications, talks, Portforlio/Web Map Collection, and CV.