John Shi Wen-zhongView profile
Professor
Professor John Shi Wen-zhong is Chair Professor of Geographical Information Science and Remote Sensing at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he serves as Head of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics. He also holds leadership positions as Director of the Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute and Director of the PolyU-Shenzhen Technology and Innovation Research Institute (Futian). Professor Shi is recognized as an international leader in uncertainty modeling and quality control for spatial data and spatial analyses, with contributions dating back to the 1990s. He currently serves as President of the International Society for Urban Informatics and Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Urban Informatics. Professor Shi's research focuses on urban informatics for smart cities, geographical information science and remote sensing, artificial intelligence-based object extraction and change detection from satellite imagery, intelligent analytics and quality control for spatial big data, and mobile mapping and 3-D modelling based on LiDAR and remote sensing imagery. His work has solved fundamental uncertainty issues in spatial data and spatial analyses, making significant contributions to geographical information science. He has authored over 300 research articles in Web of Science-indexed journals and 20 books, and has been granted 44 patents as of July 2023. Professor Shi has received numerous prestigious awards for his groundbreaking work: ESRI Award for Best Scientific Paper by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (2006) State Natural Science Award (Second Award), China's highest award for fundamental research (2007) Wang Zhizhuo Award by the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (2012) Founder's Award by the International Spatial Accuracy Research Association (2020) CPGIS Distinguished Scholar Award (2021) Gold Medals at both the 2021 and 2023 Geneva Invention Expos Smart 50 Awards (2021) Gold Medal in Asia International Innovative Invention Exhibition (2023) He is also listed among the world's top 2% most cited researchers according to Elsevier BV's standardized citation indicators. Professor Shi has been elected as an Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK), the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors.