Lei Zou

Biography

Educational Background

• Ph.D., Environmental Sciences, Louisiana State University (Outstanding Dissertation and Dr. Joseph Martinez Memorial Awards)
• M.S., Geographic Information Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
• B.E., Remote Sensing, Wuhan University

Certifications & Memberships

• Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS)
• University Consortium of Geographic Information Science (UCGIS)
• International Cartography Association (ICA)
• American Geophysics Union (AGU)
• American Association of Geographers (AAG)

Awards & Honors

• 2026 Inaugural “Professor of the Year” Award, the Geography Society at Texas A&M University
• 2025 Early Career Fellow (Community Resilience and Human Health Track), Gulf Research Program, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
• 2025 

  Emerging Scholar Award, 2025 American Association of Geographers (AAG) Spatial Analysis and Modeling Specialty Group

• 2024 Rising Geospatial Data Scientist Award, National Science Foundation I-GUIDE Virtual Competition 2024
• 2022 Global Young Scientist Award, World GIS Developers Conference (WGDC) 2022
• 2021 Best Paper Award, International Symposium on Geospatial Approaches to Combating Covid-19
• 2021 ICA Scholarship Award, 30th International Cartographic Conference
• 2019 ICA Scholarship Award, 29th International Cartographic Conference
• 2018 Outstanding Student Dissertation Award, College of Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University
• 2018 Dr. Joseph Martinez Memorial Award, College of Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University
• 2018 Dr. Joseph Martinez Memorial Award, College of Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University

• 2016 Graduate Dean's Summer Research Award, Louisiana State University

Selected Publications

• • Lam, N.S.N., Cai, H. and Zou, L., 2022. Editorial for the Special Issue: “Human-Environment Interactions Research Using Remote Sensing.” Remote Sensing, 14(11), p.2720.
    
  • *Zhou, B., Zou, L., Mostafavi, A., *Lin, B., *Yang, M., Gharaibeh, N., Cai, H., *Abedin, J. and *Mandal, D., 2022. VictimFinder: Harvesting rescue requests in disaster response from social media with BERT. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 95, p.101824.
    
  • *Lin, B., Zou, L., Duffield, N., Mostafavi, A., Cai, H., *Zhou, B., Tao, J., *Yang, M., *Mandal, D. and *Abedin, J., 2022. Revealing the linguistic and geographical disparities of public awareness to Covid-19 outbreak through social media. International Journal of Digital Earth, 15(1), pp.868-889.
    
  • *Yang, M., Zou, L., Cai, H., Qiang, Y., *Lin, B., *Zhou, B., *Abedin, J. and *Mandal, D., 2022. Spatial-temporal land loss modeling and simulation in a vulnerable coast: A case study in coastal Louisiana. Remote Sensing, 14(4), p.896.
    
  • Cai, H., Lam, N.S. and Zou, L., 2022. Incorporating neighborhood scale effects into land loss modeling using semivariograms. Journal of Geographical Systems, pp.1-21.
    
  • Ren, M., Park, S., Xu, Y., Huang, X., Zou, L., Wong, M.S. and Koh, S.Y., 2022. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel behavior: A case study of domestic inbound travelers in Jeju, Korea. Tourism Management, 92, p.104533.
    
  • Zhang, Z., Zou, L., Li, W., Usery, L., Albrecht, J. and Armstrong, M., 2021. Cyberinfrastructure and intelligent spatial decision support systems. Transactions in GIS, 25(4), pp.1651-1653.
    
  • Yang, B., Wang, Z., Zou, L., Zou, L. and Zhang, H., 2021. Exploring the eco-efficiency of cultivated land utilization and its influencing factors in China's Yangtze River Economic Belt, 2001–2018. Journal of Environmental Management, 294, p.112939.
    
  • Wang, K., Lam, N.S., Zou, L. and Mihunov, V., 2021. Twitter use in hurricane Isaac and its implications for disaster resilience. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 10(3), p.116.
    
  • Huang, X., Zhu, D., Zhang, F., Liu, T., Li, X. and Zou, L., 2021. Sensing population distribution from satellite imagery via deep learning: Model selection, neighboring effects, and systematic biases. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 14, pp.5137-5151.
    
  • Mihunov, V.V., Lam, N.S., Zou, L., Wang, Z. and Wang, K., 2020. Use of Twitter in disaster rescue: lessons learned from Hurricane Harvey. International Journal of Digital Earth, 13(12), pp.1454-1466.
    
  • Correll, R.M., Lam, N.S., Mihunov, V.V., Zou, L. and Cai, H., 2021. Economics over risk: Flooding is not the only driving factor of migration considerations on a vulnerable coast. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 111(1), pp.300-315.
    
  • Zou, L., Lam, N.S., Shams, S., Cai, H., Meyer, M.A., Yang, S., Lee, K., Park, S.J. and Reams, M.A., 2019. Social and geographical disparities in Twitter use during Hurricane Harvey. International Journal of Digital Earth, 12(11), pp.1300-1318.
    
  • Bushra, N., Rohli, R.V., Lam, N.S., Zou, L., Mostafiz, R.B. and Mihunov, V., 2019. The relationship between the normalized difference vegetation index and drought indices in the South Central United States. Natural Hazards, 96(2), pp.791-808.
    
  • Kirby, R.H., Reams, M.A., Lam, N.S., Zou, L., Dekker, G.G. and Fundter, D.Q.P., 2019. Assessing social vulnerability to flood hazards in the Dutch Province of Zeeland. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 10(2), pp.233-243.
    
  • Li, R., Crowe, J., Leifer, D., Zou, L. and Schoof, J., 2019. Beyond big data: Social media challenges and opportunities for understanding social perception of energy. Energy Research & Social Science, 56, p.101217.
    
  • Mihunov, V.V., Lam, N.S., Rohli, R.V. and Zou, L., 2019. Emerging disparities in community resilience to drought hazard in south-central United States. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 41, p.101302.
  • Zhang, B., Chen, Z., Peng, D., Benediktsson, J.A., Liu, B., Zou, L., Li, J. and Plaza, A., 2019. Remotely sensed big data: Evolution in model development for information extraction [point of view]. Proceedings of the IEEE, 107(12), pp.2294-2301.
    
  • Zou, L., Lam, N.S., Cai, H. and Qiang, Y., 2018. Mining Twitter data for improved understanding of disaster resilience. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108(5), pp.1422-1441.
    
  • Cai, H., Lam, N.S., Zou, L. and Qiang, Y., 2018. Modeling the dynamics of community resilience to coastal hazards using a Bayesian network. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108(5), pp.1260-1279.
    
  • Lam, N.S.N., Cheng, W., Zou, L. and Cai, H., 2018. Effects of landscape fragmentation on land loss. Remote sensing of environment, 209, pp.253-262.
    
  • Mihunov, V.V., Lam, N.S., Zou, L., Rohli, R.V., Bushra, N., Reams, M.A. and Argote, J.E., 2018. Community resilience to drought hazard in the south-central United States. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108(3), pp.739-755.
    
  • Cai, H., Lam, N.S., Qiang, Y., Zou, L., Correll, R.M. and Mihunov, V., 2018. A synthesis of disaster resilience measurement methods and indices. International journal of disaster risk reduction, 31, pp.844-855.
    
  • Lam, N.S.N., Qiang, Y., Li, K., Cai, H. and Zou, L., 2018. Extending resilience assessment to dynamic system modeling: perspectives on human dynamics and climate change research. Journal of Coastal Research, (85 (10085)), pp.1401-1405.
    
  • Lam, N.S.N., Xu, Y.J., Liu, K.B., Dismukes, D.E., Reams, M., Pace, R.K., Qiang, Y., Narra, S., Li, K., Bianchette, T.A., Cai, H., Zou, L. and Mihunov, V. 2018. Understanding the Mississippi River Delta as a coupled natural-human system: Research methods, challenges, and prospects. Water, 10(8), p.1054.
    
  • Qiang, Y., Lam, N.S., Cai, H. and Zou, L., 2017. Changes in exposure to flood hazards in the United States. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 107(6), pp.1332-1350.
    
  • Cai, H., Lam, N.S.N., Zou, L., Qiang, Y. and Li, K., 2016. Assessing community resilience to coastal hazards in the Lower Mississippi River Basin. Water, 8(2), p.46.
    
  • Rohli, R.V., Bushra, N., Lam, N.S., Zou, L., Mihunov, V., Reams, M.A. and Argote, J.E., 2016. Drought indices as drought predictors in the south-central USA. Natural Hazards, 83(3), pp.1567-1582.
    
  • Shen, Q., Li, J.S., Zhang, B., Wu, Y.H., Zou, L. and Wu, T.X., 2016. Analyzing Spectral Characteristics of Water Involving In-Situ Multiangle Polarized Reflectance and Extraction of Water-Leaving Radiance. Spectroscopy and Spectral Analysis, 36(10), pp.3269-3273.
    
  • Zou, L., Kent, J., Lam, N.S.N., Cai, H., Qiang, Y. and Li, K., 2015. Evaluating land subsidence rates and their implications for land loss in the lower Mississippi River basin. Water, 8(1), p.10.
    
  • Li, K., Lam, N.S., Qiang, Y., Zou, L. and Cai, H., 2015. A cyberinfrastructure for community resilience assessment and visualization. Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 42(sup1), pp.34-39.
    
  • Zhang, F., Zhang, B., Li, J., Shen, Q., Wu, Y., Wang, G., Zou, L. and Wang, S., 2014. Validation of a synthetic chlorophyll index for remote estimates of chlorophyll-a in a turbid hypereutrophic lake. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 35(1), pp.289-305.
  • Zou, L., *Zhou, B., *Lin, B., *Mandal, D., Cai, H., *Yang, M., *Abedin, J. 2022. Empowering disaster response with social media and GeoAI: Opportunities and Challenges. AutoCarto 2022.
  • *Zhou, B., Zou, L., *Yang, M., *Lin, B., *Mandal, D. 2022. Overlooked Voices under Strict Lockdown: Mapping Humanitarian Needs in 2022 Shanghai COVID-19 Outbreak. AutoCarto 2022.
  • *Lin, B., Zou, L., *Yang, M., *Zhou, B. 2022. Multi-granular geovisualizations of public perceptions of COVID-19 through the lens of Twitter. AutoCarto 2022.
  • *Mandal, D., Zou, L., Cai, H., *Lin, B., *Zhou, B., *Abedin, J., *Yang, M. 2022. Uncertainties in geolocating social media data for disaster management. AutoCarto 2022.
  • Zou, L., 2021. Mapping the disparities of community resilience to natural hazards in the United States. Abstracts of the ICA, 3, p.330.
  • Zou, L., 2019. Visualizing and mining social media data for smart emergency management. Abstracts of the ICA, 1, p.442.
  • Lam, N.S.N., Cai, H., Zou, L. and Liu, K.B., 2019. Scale effects on land loss modeling in the Mississippi River Delta. Abstracts of the ICA, 1, p.205.
  • *Chen, X., Zou, L. and Zhao, B., 2019. Detecting climate change deniers on Twitter using a deep neural network. Proceedings of the 2019 11th International Conference on Machine Learning and Computing (pp. 204-210).
  • Zou, L., Zhang, B., Li, J., Shen, Q., Zhang, F. and Wang, G., 2014. A study on retrieval algorithm of black water aggregation in Taihu Lake based on HJ-1 satellite images. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 17, No. 1, p. 012100). IOP Publishing.
  • Zou, L., Zhang, B., Li, J., Song, Y., Shen, Q. and Li, L., 2012. A comparative analysis of the ‘transmittance’ method between using integrating sphere and filter holders for measuring light absorption by aquatic particles. 2012 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 2567-2570). Ieee.
  • Li, J., Zhang, B., Shen, Q., Zou, L. and Li, L., 2012. Monitoring water quality of Lake Taihu from HJ-CCD data using empirical models. 2012 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 812-815). Ieee.
    
  • Lam, N.S.N., Xu, Y.J., Pace, R.K., Liu, K.B., Qiang, Y., Narra, S., Bianchette, T.A., Cai, H., Zou, L., Li, K. and Joshi, S., 2019. Collaboration across boundaries: Reflections on studying the sustainability of the Mississippi River Delta as a coupled natural-human system. In Collaboration Across Boundaries for Social-Ecological Systems Science (pp. 361-393). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
  • Zou, L., Lam, N.S.N., Cai, H., 2019. A framework for analyzing and visualizing Twitter use patterns during natural hazards. US National Report for the International Cartographic Association.