I am Di Yang, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Florida. I am a geographer and programmer focusing on the study of human-environment interactions by using remote sensing images. I am a bridge-builder for closing the gap between the operational uses of scientific remote sensing and GIS techniques and land management practices at the regional scale. The general theme of my work is to gain a quantitative understanding of the relationships between humans, landscape patterns, and ecological processes. Current projects include early NEON science, geospatial modeling, citizen science, and the applications of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) at the macrosystems scale.
The Geospatial Digital Informatics Lab focuses on the study of human-environment interactions through a multi-disciplinary approach combining remote sensing, machine learning, geospatial artificial intelligence, citizen science, and public engagement.
Recent News
March 2026 — PhD student Shuai Li, along with Dr. Yaqian He, Dr. Di Yang, Dr. Yichan Li, and Wei Liu, published “Incorporating learned geospatial embeddings to deep image prior for inpainting cloud areas in remotely sensed images” in Science of Remote Sensing! Read it here.
February 2026 — The GeoDI Lab hosted the EMERGE NASA Data Hackathon at the University of Florida. See the projects here!
January 2026 — Dr. Di Yang, Dr. Yichan Li, and Peder Nelson hosted a workshop for ForestSAT, “Integrating GLOBE Observer Tree and Land Cover Data with NASA Earth Observations for Environmental Monitoring.”
December 2025 — Lab members and collaborators presented three posters and a talk at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.
November 2025 — Dr. Di Yang has been selected for the UF International Center 2026 Global Fellows Program, where will receive a grant to advance international research integrating satellite remote sensing, AI, and citizen science for environmental monitoring in Ecuador, Guatemala, and Mexico.
November 2025 — Dr. Di Yang is a guest editor for a special issue of Land, “Land Use Change and Technological Innovations: Remote Sensing and Artificial Intelligence Approaches.”
November 2025 — Our lab has received a grant from the Earth Science Information Partners for Democratizing Geospatial AI/ML!
November 2025 — Dr. Yichan Li presented research on “Long-term Spatiotemporal Analysis of Land Cover Change Effects on Fire Regimes” at the recent Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers (SEDAAG) conference in Lexington, KY.
November 2025 — Lab members Di Fan and Olivia Zhang have been selected as 2025-2026 Early Career Fellows with UCLA’s Center for Developing Leadership in Science. Congratulations Di and Olivia!
October 2025 — Dr. Yichan Li led a Google Earth Engine workshop with the Natural Resource Management in Africa (NRM) Working Group. Read more!
October 2025 — We presented about EMERGE: Youth Environmental Action through Citizen Science & Spatial Thinking at the 2025 4-H National Volunteer Conference.
September 2025 — We hosted our EMERGE Hackathon in South Florida, where participants turned mosquito and land cover data into maps, infographics, and public awareness tools with support from mentors.
August 2025 — Welcome Dr. Yichan Li as our Post-Doctoral Associate! Read more.
July 2025 — We released EMERGE, our participatory science curriculum for mapping mosquitoes and land cover. Read more.
April 2025 — Lab member Kaitlyn Anderson, a second-year master’s student, has been awarded the PASG Graduate Student Paper Award for her research “Ecological Fragmentation: Road Networks in U.S. National Parks and Forests,” presented by the Protected Areas Specialty Group (PASG) of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). Read more.
April 2025 — Lab member Olivia Zhang has received the John R. and Fawn T. Dunkle Geography Award in recognition of her GeoAI research, leadership experience, and involvement as a Geography ambassador!
February 2025 — Di gave a seminar talk at the GLOBE Mosquito February 2025 Webinar.
February 2025 — Lab member Kaitlyn Anderson presented her work on “Parks, Forests, and People: A History of America’s Protected Lands” at the Florida Society of Geographers meeting, exploring the complex relationship between conservation and human interaction in protected areas.
February 2025 — We restarted the Amazon AWS Academy at UF.
January 2025 — New publication, “Unveiling disparities: a social media analysis of urban park usage and sentiments in Oklahoma City.”
January 2025 — New publication, “GLOBE Observer: A Case Study in Advancing Earth System Knowledge with AI-Powered Citizen Science” led by Peder Nelson.
January 2025 — Excited to share our latest research published in Forest Ecosystems that leverages NEON field measurements and geospatial analytics to develop a novel framework for mapping standing dead tree clusters and assessing wildfire vulnerability in Yellowstone National Park. Our study demonstrates how integrating ground-based ecological data with multi-source remote sensing can help park managers make data-driven decisions for forest management and wildfire risk mitigation.
January 2025 — Excited to share that Dr. Yang is guest editing a new Special Feature in Nature – Scientific Reports on Technological Advances in Forest Monitoring and Management. Deadline July 2025.
Janurary 2025 — As Lead PI, we received a NASA grant for the project “Forecasting Mosquito-Borne Disease Risk in a Changing Climate: Integrating GLOBE Citizen Science and NASA Earth System Modeling.” This project promises to revolutionize our understanding of disease transmission dynamics with the help of citizen scientists and earth observation.