Zengwang Xu
Assistant Professor
Office: NWQ B, Room 6498
Phone: 414-229-4874
E-mail: xuz@uwm.edu
Curriculum Vitae: pdf (102kb)
Mailing Address:
Professor Zengwang Xu
Department of Geography
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Education:
Ph.D., Geography, Texas A&M University, 2007
M.S., Geography, Nanjing University, China, 1998
B.E., Surveying Engineering, Southwestern Jiaotong University, China, 1995
Courses Taught:
Geog 525: Geographical Information Science
Office Hours:
By appointment only
Research Interests:
My research integrates GIS, complex networks/systems science, and spatial and statistical analyses to study the structures, functions, patterns, and evolution of geospatial networks/systems, e.g., complex urban systems, transportation networks, and social contact networks. My primary interests are to investigate the relation between persistent system level patterns and individual based processes, and the effects of spatiality on the structure and functions and the evolving connectivity on dynamics occurring on complex spatial networks/systems. One study on Texas urban system shows that the persistent macro level pattern of city size distributions can be better approximated by spatially and temporally autocorrelated growth processes of individual cities. Others address the structures and dynamics occurring on transportations networks. In addition, my recent projects applied GIS and spatial analysis to investigate population vulnerability to hurricane wind damage in the US Gulf Coast over past five decades, and to interpolate 2000 census tract data to the redistricted 2010 census tracts. My ongoing research addresses spatial and temporal network analytics on human social contact networks by investigating epidemic diffusion and online social networks.
Representative Publications:
A spatial and temporal autocorrelated growth model for city rank size distribution (with Robert Harriss), Urban Studies, 47, 2010, pp. 321-335.
The effect of small-world networks on epidemic propagation and intervention (with Daniel Sui), Geographical Analysis, 41, 2009, pp. 263-282.
Exploring the structure of the U.S. inter-city passenger air transportation network: a weighted complex network approach (with Robert Harriss), GeoJournal, 73, 2008, pp. 87-102.
Small-world characteristics on transportation networks: A perspective from network autocorrelation (with Daniel Sui), Journal of Geographical Systems, 9, 2007, pp.189-205.
