Jiaqi Liang

About Me

Currently, I am a member of the Smart and Sustainable Cities Study Group (ITU-T SG20) at the International Telecommunication Union headquarters in Geneva. Here, I examine sustainable development trends of urban digital transformation from the perspectives of international organizations, cities, and businesses. I recently completed my Master’s degree in Regional Planning at Cornell University in 2023 May.
Smart Cities, urban sustainability and transportation are my focuses of study and research. Like many other domains, they have been dramatically influenced by AI and data science. With the question about what a data-driven sustainability study should be, I chose an interdisciplinary curriculum in the intersection of machine learning, urban economics, cultural geography, GIScience, etc. Therefore, I have acquired a strong technical skillset in Natural Language Processing, heterogeneous data integration, spatial statistics, etc., and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch. Additionally, I have carried out a wide variety of independent research projects, such as applying spatially explicit Boosted Tree models to study how urban environment influences people’s choices in sustainable transportation and green space usage.
I also have rich practical experience as an urban planner for 2 years totally. I used to make detailed market analyses for different industries, conduct case studies, and provide viable consulting solutions for local economic development. During these practical experiences, I often communicated with government officials and private sector clients.

Technical Skills

• Urban Design: Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, CorelDraw, Rhino, AutoCAD, Microsoft Suites
• Programming, Stats & ML: Python, R, Neural networks (PyTorch), Natural Language Processing, Stata, SPSS
• GIS: ArcGIS Pro, QGIS, ArcMap, ENVI for remote sensing images
• Certificates: UN Introduction to Data Governance, UN Sustainable Finance, BCG Climate and Sustainability Virtual Experience Program, Coursera Machine Learning Online Certificate
• Languages: English (Fluent), Chinese (Native), German (Beginner), French (Beginner

Research Interests

• Smart Cities
• Urban Data Science
• Sustainable Transportation
• Urban Networks
• Built-environment

Work Experience

• 08. 2023 - Now
  Sustainable Smart City Intern at International Telecommunication Union, Geneva, Switzerland
  Conducted research on sustainable development trends, smart mobility planning case studies, and examined the impact of digital twins, generative models on future city development. Led the first UN executive briefing on virtual worlds. Contributed to drafting various ITU Technical Reports. Managed the Digital Transformation Webinar Series which attracted 1000+ participants. Enriched the Digital Transformation Resource Hub through literature reviews and data analysis, summarizing key findings in executive summaries. Crafted graphic-rich presentations on Smart Sustainable Cities, authored event reports, and actively contributed to over 5 international standardization conferences.

• 10. 2023 - Now
  Researcher on Decentralized Governance at MIT Media Lab & Tongji City Science Lab
  Engaged in SoCity DAO Project, focused on promoting green commute transportation means, studied urban decentralized incentive policies combined with current blockchain smart contract technologies. Studied recent Layer 2 solutions and analyzed risks. Suggested on voting models, reputation score and governance token system design and promoted pro-social, pro-sustainable behaviors in cities; helped develop the Green Commute App.

• 05. 2022 - 10. 2022
  Sustainability Assessment Intern at The KPA Group, Pleasanton, CA
  Assessed public facilities on-site, documented data, and completed sustainability checklists; Drafted sustainable strategies based on LEED and WELL standards for 3 California cities; Wrote technical reports on net zero carbon emission; Built predictive models for city population and staff growth, which were accepted by the KPA Group as the standardized procedure for future projects; Created 3D models of facilities for sunlight, thermal, and energy analysis; Complied citywide facility planning proposals for 10 Northern California cities

• 08. 2022 - 12. 2022
  GIS Graduate Assistant at Cornell University
  Responsible for course CRP 4080: Introduction to GIS, covered geospatial data processing, thematic mapping, geocoding, georeferencing, network analysis, assisted with Python coding labs, and usage of analysis tools like ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online and Geoda. Managed, published and used ArcGIS Online shapefiles and geodatasets in Cornell CUGIS platform.

• 03. 2021 - 06. 2021
  Urban Consultant at Shanghai One-tenth Art Company
  Engaged in the Waterfront Area Planning Project in Longquan City as a core team member. Discovered local cultural spaces, applied the cultural landscape theory and spatial analysis in the local culture revitalization, and carried out architecture programming of 10 future public waterfront venues.

• 08. 2020 - 03.2021
  Urban Consultant at [Shanghai TIANHUA Urban Planning and Design Co., Ltd]
  Shaped strategic concepts, and communicated with clients for 6 strategic master planning projects including Chengdu Beihu Bamboo Industry Area Planning Project, Suzhou Lujia Subway Station TOD Project, Zhangzhou Longhai Fishery Port and Industry Area Planning Project, Hainan Lingao yacht port and yacht industry area Planning Project. Built models by muti-source data to estimate feasible development amount, and compared to clients’ need. Interviewed industry experts, government officials, drafted questionnaires, and wrote summaries. Scraped land transaction, market rent, and compensation data to estimate overall returns of projects. Studied green technology trends, mapped market competition, evaluated global value chain for sustainable building technologies, bamboo, yacht and marine industry, and estimated future market growth.

Research Experience

• Effects of home and workplace built environments on park usage: A case study of Shanghai 09/2019-06/2020
  [Project Info]
  Geocoded addresses of each individual’s home and workplace and calculated their shortest distances; Collected and processed park usage frequency, social-economic data and health information. Quantified built environment factors (e.g., mixed land-use index, street cross density) based on POI (Point of Interest) data mining. Implemented a Gradient Boosting Decision Tree model to analyze the non-linear impact of urban built environment on park usage frequency

• How the Location Selection of High-speed Railway Stations Influences Station Area Development in China? 09/2017-09/2020
  [Project Info]
  Established the group project as the leader; Archived and preprocessed social-economic, NPP-VIIRS nighttime light imagery, and POI data related to high-speed railway stations at both county and city levels; Used geocoding services to enrich heterogeneous raw data with their geographic information. Used focal statistics to measure station area development based on night activity; Implemented multivariate regression analysis and Difference-in-Difference estimation to determine the statistical importance of station construction based on panel data ranging from 2012 to 2016

• Spatial Analysis of the Effect of Public Transit on Median Earnings in NYC 02/2022-05/2022
  Archived and preprocessed social-economic and POI data related to public transit. Used hotspot analysis to significant spatial clusters of high earnings, implemented multivariate regression analysis and Spatial Error and Spatial Lag models to determine the statistical importance of public transit accessibility on different groups of people.

• Influence of Active Transportation to Work on Obesity at U.S. County Level 09/2021-12/2021
  Accessed US Census and ACS socioeconomic, transportation usage and obesity data of 3,098 counties. Utilized multivariate regression explore the importance of the usage of active transportation on county-level obesity by controlling other health-related factors.

• Predicting Sustainable Transportation Choices of NYC Residents 03/2022-05/2022
  Predicted frequency of sustainable trips and whether people choose sustainable transportation for commuting by applying Random Forest and Boosting models. Analyzed effects of socio-economic and geographical factors on the choice of sustainable transportation.

• Case Study of the Development Research about Science, Technology and Innovation Parks in Asian-Pacific Countries sponsored by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) 09/2018-06/2019
  Conducted literature review and analyzed cases of Indonesia STI parks; Wrote a report about the history, type and operation of Indonesia STI parks; Discussed current studies of other Asian-Pacific countries.

• Mapping World Cruise Port Network 12/2018-03/2019
  [Project Info]
  Performed world cruise data scraping, including starting city, destination and itinerary information; Geocoded port addresses by using Google Map API. Calculated the in- and out-degree centrality of each port based on social network modeling, and analyzed the core-periphery structure of the network. Visualized geographic patterns of market share with respect to different cruise companies

• Do historic administrative divisions relate to mutual perceptions of residents from 21 southern Jiangsu counties today? 12/2018-02/2019
  [Project Info]
  Retrieved mutual comments from threads on Baidu Tieba (one of the most popular internet forums in China) and historical records of administrative divisions according to Chinese historical maps. Implemented QAP correlation analysis on administrative division networks formed by spatial and semantic relations respectively. Visualized administrative divisions across time and mutual perceptions nowadays, along with narratives, statistical summaries and charts
  

Honors and Prizes

• Excellent Undergraduate Student of Shanghai awarded by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission 06/2020
• China National Scholarship Top 0.2% of 27,000,000 students; awarded by Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 09/2018
• Excellent Student in 2016, 2017, and 2018 awarded by East China Normal University
• Premium Scholarship in 2016, awarded by East China Normal University

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