Dr. Haifeng Niu is a Research Associate at the Interdisciplinary Spatial Analysis Lab, University of Cambridge. His interdisciplinary background in GIS, Spatial Data Science, and Urban Systems drives his research at the intersection of Machine Learning & GeoAI and urban big data, which aims to enhance spatial planning, policy-making, and smart governance. He is currently engaged in the eMOTIONAL Cities project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 program. This research delves into neurobiological signals that influence emotions and decisions during human interactions with the urban environment, with the goal of improving population health and well-being.

Haifeng holds a PhD in Land Economy from the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, and a master's degree in Urban and Rural Planning from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China.

His research has been published in esteemed academic journals including Cities, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, Built Environment, and the Journal of Urban Planning and Development. He also serves as a reviewer for journals such as Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (Springer-Nature), Land Use Policy, Journal of Urban Planning and Development, and Knowledge and Information Systems.

Going Beyond: Big Data and Urban Policy (2020-2021)

RM03: Spatial Analysis and Modelling (2019-2020, 2020-2021)

RM01: Mixed Research Methods Option B (2017-2018)

Spatial Data Science, Explainable Machine Learning, GeoAI, Urban Informatics, Smart Cities, Big Data Mining, Complex Systems and Dynamic Modelling

Journal Articles:

Niu, H.*, Tu, X. & Silva, E. A. (2023). Using decision-tree methodologies to explore determinants of health and wellbeing outcomes at the local authority scale the case study of london. Built Environment, 49(2), 248-266.

Niu, H.*, & Silva, E. A. (2023). Understanding temporal and spatial patterns of urban activities across demographic groups through geotagged social media data. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 100, 101934.

Chen, Y., Niu, H.*, & Silva, E. A. (2023). The road to recovery: Sensing public opinion towards reopening measures with social media data in post-lockdown cities. Cities, 132, 104054.

Niu, H.*, & Silva, E. A. (2021). Delineating urban functional use from points of interest data with neural network embedding: A case study in Greater London. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 88, 101651.

Niu, H.*, & Silva, E. A. (2020). Crowdsourced data mining for urban activity: Review of data sources, applications, and methods. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 146(2), 04020007.

Book Chapters:

Silva, E. A., Liu, L., Kwon, H. R., Niu, H., & Chen, Y. (2021). What’s new in urban data analytics?. Applied Data Analysis for Urban Planning and Management, 11.

Silva, E. A., Liu, L., Kwon, H. R., Niu, H., & Chen, Y. (2020). Hard and soft data integration in geocomputation: Mixed methods for data collection and processing in urban planning. Handbook of Planning Support Science. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 37-55.

Spatial Analysis and Modelling, Urban Informatics, Public Policy, Urban Development

Lab of Interdisciplinary Spatial Analysis