“中国城市研究网络（UCRN）”发布2024 UCRN Scholar Highlights

Dr. Can Cui is a professor in the Department of Human Geography, the School of Geographic Sciences at East China Normal University (ECNU). She also serves as the Director of the Future City Lab and an adjunct researcher at the Center for Modern Chinese City Studies at ECNU. Dr. Cui holds a Ph.D. in Human Geography and Spatial Planning from Utrecht University, an MA in Geographic Information Science from Nanjing University, and a BA in Geographic Information Science from Hunan Normal University. Prior to joining ECNU, she worked as a Pollman Fellow in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.         

Her primary research interests lie in the field of housing studies and population migration. Against the backdrop of China’s rapid urbanization, housing marketization, and significant population movements, her work focuses on housing differentiation and human capital migration amid the country’s socio-economic transformation. Recently, her research has concentrated on issues such as housing wealth inequality, intergenerational transmission of housing inequality, and the dynamics of talent migration in China. Her research has been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the International Collaborative Program of NSFC, the Key Project of Shanghai Municipality for Soft Science, and the California Union-Harvard Cooperative Research Program. She has authored two books on housing and published her research in leading academic journals such as Urban Studies, Environment and Planning A, Cities, Housing Studies, International Journal of Housing Policy, Sociological Studies, and Acta Geographica Sinica in both English and Chinese. Dr. Cui is also actively involved in professional communities. She serves on the Editorial Board of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, is a Board Member of the International Sociology Association RC 43 Housing and Built Environment, and is a committee member for Territorial Spatial Planning at the Chinese Society of Natural Resources.    

Dr. Jianping Gu obtained her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Urban Economics from the Urban Analysis Laboratory at the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan. Since 2017, she has been working at the School of Management Science and Real Estate, Chongqing University, where she currently serves as an Associate Professor and Ph.D. supervisor. She is also a board member of the China Land Economics Society and the Chongqing Geographical Society.顾渐萍于日本东京大学前沿科学大学院城市解析实验室，获取城市经济学研究方向的硕士和博士学位。2017年至今，任职于重庆大学管理科学与房地产学院，现任副教授、博士生导师。兼任中国国土经济学会理事、重庆地理学会理事。        

With an interdisciplinary educational and research background spanning geography, management, and regional/urban economics, Jianping Gu is dedicated to addressing issues related to regional development and urbanization governance. Her research explores the spatiotemporal complexity of cities, focusing on themes such as spatial decision-making under uncertainty, 3D urban spaces, and the complexity of urban innovation. She has led over ten national and provincial research projects, including two National Natural Science Foundation projects. Her publications are in high-impact international journals in the field of regional and urban studies, such as Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (a sub-journal of Nature), Landscape and Urban Planning, and Cities. She has been invited to present at various international conferences and universities, frequently serving as a session chair and expert panelist.基于地理学、管理学和区域/城市经济学交叉的教育研究背景，致力于解决区域发展与城镇化治理问题，顾渐萍围绕城市时空复杂性开展研究（包含不确定下的空间决策、三维城市空间与城市创新复杂性等主题）。主持国家及省部级科研项目十余项, 其中包括主持国家级自然科学项目2项。取得了丰富的学术成果，以第一/通讯作者身份在Nature旗下人文社科子刊《Humanities & Social Sciences Communications》、 城市领域国际top期刊《Landscape and Urban Planning》、《Cities》等国际高水平期刊上发表论文二十余篇。   

Mingzhi Hu is an Associate Professor at the School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, and a Special Associate Researcher at the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Research Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He is also the Secretary of the Forum for Young and Middle-aged Scholars in Chinese Real Estate and a member of the Youth Committee of Urban Sustainable Construction and Management, Chinese Urban Economics Association. He previously taught at Jinan University (2018-2021), earned a Ph.D. from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (2015-2018), and studied at Florida International University as a joint Ph.D. student (2016-2017). Additionally, He was a visiting scholar at the University of Queensland Business School from August 2023 to August 2024.         

My primary research interests encompass housing and real estate economics, urban economics, and entrepreneurship. I have published over 50 papers in academic journals, including the Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Banking & Finance, Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Journal of Housing Economics, Journal of Real Estate Research, Small Business Economics, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, and Finance & Trade Economics. As a principal investigator, I have led several national and provincial-level research projects, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Guangdong Natural Science Foundation. I serve as an anonymous reviewer for numerous journals, including the Journal of Business Venturing, Small Business Economics, Journal of Real Estate Research, Journal of Development Economics, Urban Studies, Housing Studies, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, International Journal of Finance and Economics, China Economic Quarterly, and Management Review. Additionally, I hold editorial positions as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Regional Economics, Guest Editor for the Journal of Risk and Financial Management, and serve on the editorial boards of the Journal of Real Estate Research and SN Business & Economics.我的主要研究方向包括住房与房地产经济、城市经济和创业。在Journal of Business Venturing、Journal of Banking & Finance、Real Estate Economics、Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics、Journal of Housing Economics、Journal of Real Estate Research、Small Business Economics、Technological Forecasting and Social Change以及财贸经济等学术期刊上发表了50多篇论文，主持了国家自然科学基金青年项目和广东省自然科学基金面上项目等国家级和省部级课题。担任Journal of Business Venturing、Small Business Economics、Journal of Real Estate Research、Journal of Development Economics、Urban Studies、Housing Studies、Technological Forecasting & Social Change、International Journal of Finance and Economics、经济学（季刊）和管理评论等期刊的匿名审稿人，并担任Journal of Regional Economics期刊主编、Journal of Risk and Financial Management期刊客座主编，以及Journal of Real Estate Research和SN Business & Economics期刊的编委。   

Dr. Cheng Liu (刘成) is an Associate Professor at the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan). He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Auckland, as well as Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Land Resources Management from China University of Geosciences (Wuhan).         

Dr. Cheng Liu's research focuses on gentrification, urban micro-simulation, and GeoAI. First, he challenges existing theories of gentrification and enriches the field with new research methods, theoretical frameworks and practices. His paper published in Geoforum argues that the flows of capital, people, and knowledge provide a foundation for a holistic theory of planetary gentrification and a vital reference point for comparative studies. He also evaluates rent gap theory, a supply-side explanation of gentrification (published in Urban Geography), explores the genesis of the rent gap (published in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space), and offers novel insights into political praxis to redress social injustice in gentrification (published in Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie). These studies enhance both theoretical and empirical understanding of gentrification. Second, he transcends the boundaries of supply-side and demand-side theories and simulates the spatiotemporal process of gentrification. His contribution to Computers, Environment and Urban Systems links the housing life cycle (Cellular Automata) with household life cycle (Agent-based Model) and reveals the impact of various modes of interaction between the two on the spatial patterns of housing and households. This research provides a more comprehensive view of the spatiotemporal evolution of gentrification.Third, he advances the identification of gentrification via AI and big data. He compares the advantages and disadvantages of threshold-based method and a machine-learning approach using socio-economic status data. Moreover, he proposes a flexible GeoAI framework for mapping property redevelopment. This model integrates computer vision of street view imagery with the patterns and processes of urban redevelopment via deep convolutional neural networks and spatiotemporal neighborhoods. This line of inquiry opens new avenues for future research in gentrification and GeoAI. Additionally, he has secured significant funding for his research, including grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other prestigious organizations.    

Dr. Xuanyi Nie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the State University of New York, Buffalo (University at Buffalo). Between September 2021 and August 2023, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, during which he also taught at the National University of Singapore and Roger Williams University. He has practiced architecture, urban design, and planning consultancy in China, the United States, and UN-Habitat in Kenya. He received a Doctor of Design in Urban Studies, a Master of Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.         

Xuanyi is interested in the dynamics of power and agency in shaping equitable and healthy urban futures. His scholarship specifically explores healthcare actors and the institutional and social forces in urban and community development, spanning China, North America, and Southeast Asia. His research has explored how healthcare policies and economic pursuits intersect and translate into the autonomy of entrepreneurial healthcare actors in urban development in the United States and China. Specifically in China, while the state could use market legitimacy to leverage the private sector to address crises in healthcare reform, the private sector could also strategically partner with public institutions such as hospitals and universities to hijack the state’s pursuits for speculative development (Urban Studies, 2023; Urban Geography, 2024). Parallel to this, he has investigated the roles of medical institutions in regional development (Regional Studies, 2024; Applied Geography, 2024). These studies yielded important insights into the inequality of healthcare infrastructure and the economic and social privileges given to certain institutional and social groups. These findings then stimulated him to further inquire into equitable opportunities in community development across different socioeconomic contexts, including the governance and empowerment of urban communities (Population, Space and Place, 2023; Urban Research & Practice, 2021), power dynamics in community development (Urban Geography, 2024; Cities, 2024), and community well-being (BMC Public Health, 2024; Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2023). An important component of his current work is launching social experiments in partnership with community members and assessing their impacts on community well-being, particularly for the elderly. Due to a background in architecture and design, space matters to him. One of Xuanyi’s career goals is to integrate the praxis of space and design into my research inquiries.    

Jesse Rodenbiker is an assistant teaching professor of geography at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Rodenbiker has served as an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University with the Center on Contemporary China, an Atkinson Postdoctoral Research Associate in Sustainability with the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at Cornell University, and as a Visiting Scholar at Sichuan University in the School of Public Administration and Department of Land Resource Management. He holds a doctorate in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley.         

Rodenbiker is a human-environment geographer and interdisciplinary social scientist focusing on environmental governance, urbanization, and social inequality in China and globally. Rodenbiker is the author of the open-access book Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China (2023, Cornell University Press), which draws on long-term fieldwork in southwest Chinese cities to examine how ecology has become instrumental to state power, urbanization, and involuntary resettlement. Additionally, he has publications on the history of China's ecological thought and ecological civilization building (Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2021), peri-urban ecological migration, conservation planning, and displacement (International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (2020), volumetric politics of urban-rural transitions (Geoforum 2019), withdrawal from rural homesteads (Land Use Policy 2021), and the need to prioritize social justice in China's city planning (Transactions in Planning and Urban Research, 2022). Recently, Rodenbiker has turned attention to examining relationships between the politics of urban consumption and biodiversity loss at sea in his project titled Urban Oceans: Centers and Edges of a Sustainable Marine Wildlife Trade. Related works have delved into high-value seafood commodity trade and transitional social values in Hong Kong (Urban Geography, 2024), Chinese-language market labelling and sea cucumber trade (Sustainability, 2024), socio-ecological dynamics between urban shark fin markets and Mid-Atlantic fisheries (Ecology and Society, 2023), as well as the classed, gendered, and racialized relationships between the city and the sea (Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2023). Finally, Rodenbiker is pursuing research on global China and the environment with publications on green BRI infrastructure in the Global South (Critical Asian Studies, 2023), China's green soft power (The Wilson Center, 2023), as well as geopolitical imaginaries of Chinese investment and their role in fomenting populist coalitions and a new red scare across the U.S. (Political Geography, 2024). Rodenbiker is a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations.    

Dr. Amy Zhang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at New York University. From 2016-2017, Zhang was the An Wang Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. She holds a PhD in the joint program in Anthropology and Forestry and Environmental Studies from Yale University.         

As a sociocultural anthropologist and political ecologist, Zhang’s research investigates environment, technology, labor, and urban life. In particular, her work is interested in how the deployment of environmental technologies intersects with ongoing dynamics of urbanization and development, and how citizens come to intervene in the state’s techno-scientific projects. Her first book Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China (Stanford University Press, 2024), is a study of the implementation of technologies and infrastructures to modernize a mega-city's waste management system, and the grassroots ecological politics that emerged. Based on long-term research in Guangzhou, Circular Ecologies traces ecological experiments in the early 2010s, in which Chinese policy makers came to waste management as an issue of environmental governance central to the creation of “modern” cities. Other writings on China’s efforts to create ecological cities examine themes such as infrastructural spectacles (Science, Technology & Human Value, 2024), citizen DIY experiments in environmental rehabilitation (Current Anthropology, 2021), waste and entomology (Cultural Anthropology, 2020), waste labor as infrastructure (Made in China, 2019) and the rise of urban environmental protests (China Perspectives, 2014). She is at work on two additional articles that examine the politics of waste labor in China’s ecological cities. She is the recipient of two prizes from the Anthropology and Environment Society of the American Anthropological Association. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, The Social Science Research Council and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research among others.         

Dr. Xianchun Zhang is an Assistant Professor and PhD Supervisor in the Department of Land Management at the School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, under the institution's prestigious "Hundred Talents Program." He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong and previously held postdoctoral fellow and research associate positions at the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.张衔春，博士，浙江大学公共管理学院土地管理系百人计划研究员，博士生导师。他于香港大学获得城市规划与设计专业博士学位，曾在香港大学、香港中文大学及香港理工大学任职博士后研究员及副研究员等工作。         

Dr. Zhang's research focuses on city-region governance, the political economy of urban space, and urban land policy. He has published over 100 papers in leading academic journals, including Urban Geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Urban Studies, Landscape and Urban Planning, Scientia Geographica Sinica, Geographical Research, City Planning Review, China Population, Resources, and Environment, and Journal of Natural Resources. Several of his works have been recognized as ESI Highly Cited Papers and have been fully reprinted in the Renmin University of China’s Reprinted Materials. In addition, Dr. Zhang is the author of three academic monographs in both Chinese and English. Dr. Zhang has led or contributed to numerous research projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China's Young Scientists Fund, the General Program, and major projects supported by the National Social Science Fund. He has been recognized as a High-Level Talent in Scientific and Technological Innovation (Youth Talent) by the Ministry of Natural Resources in the area of territorial spatial planning. Furthermore, he serves as a peer reviewer for the National Natural Science Foundation of China and holds youth editorial board memberships for China Land Science, World Regional Studies, and Tropical Geography.张衔春博士的研究领域主要集中在城市区域治理、城市空间政治经济学及城市土地政策。他已在《Urban Geography》《Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers》《Annals of the American Association of Geographers》《Urban Studies》《Landscape and Urban Planning》《地理科学》《地理研究》《城市规划》《中国人口·资源与环境》及《自然资源学报》等期刊发表论文100余篇。其中，研究成果入选ESI高被引论文以及中国人民大学复印报刊资料全文转载。出版中英文学术专著3本。主持或参与国家自然科学基金青年项目、国家自然科学基金面上项目、国家社会科学基金重大项目等。获自然资源部国土空间规划行业高层次科技创新人才（青年科技人才）等称号，并担任国家自然科学基金委员会同行评议专家,《中国土地科学》《世界地理研究》《热带地理》杂志青年编委。    

Dr. Yawei Zhao is a lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Manchester. Prior to her current position, she completed her doctoral studies in human geography at the University of Calgary and obtained her master’s degree in human geography from McGill University. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and she serves as an elected board member of the Urban Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.         

My research intersects digital geographies, sustainability studies, and urban studies. I am currently working on a British Academy-funded project investigating the expansion of data centers in China, a trend driven by the increasing demand for cloud computing. This research explores how the construction of these energy-intensive digital infrastructures has been shaped by the aspirations of less developed regions as well as the country’s renewable energy boom. This project stems from my enduring interest in the impacts of digital technologies on urban life and governance. My article in Journal of Urban Affairs, for example, explores the role that lifestyle migrants play in urban changes, facilitated by digital tools and platforms. I recognize three forms of place-making (creative, transgressive, and aesthetic place-making) in the article, which have forged connections between the online and offline worlds and given rise to ‘lifestyle-oriented urbanization’. In 2023, I co-organized a workshop at the University of Manchester, funded by the Manchester-Melbourne-Toronto research fund, to discuss how the digitalization of housing data and service provision has exacerbated housing affordability issues. While my research covers diverse topics, the unique challenges of economically disadvantaged cities remain a constant thread throughout my career. In my recent article in Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, I analyze the mass demolition in a small Chinese city caused by China’s Ecological Civilization. While such demolition resembles a degrowth strategy in its rhetoric and short-term effects, I argue that it actually functions as a spatio-temporal fix enabling the local government to address both ecological and political imperatives while reconfiguring growth coalitions.