Yifang Ban

Yifang Ban is a Professor and Head of the Division of Geoinformatics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology's Department of Urban Planning and Environment. She is also an Associate Director for Dissemination & Impact at Digital Futures in Stockholm. Her research focuses on Earth observation big data analytics, machine learning/deep learning applications in environmental monitoring (e.g., urbanization, wildfires, flooding), and sustainable development. She has led impactful projects such as EO-AI4GlobalChange and HARMONIA, and is ranked among the top 2% of scientists in Geological and Geomatics Engineering (2020-2023).

Education: PhD from the University of Waterloo (1996), with additional leadership training (2023, University of Cambridge).
Research Interests: Environmental change monitoring, satellite data fusion, AI-driven geospatial analysis, and global urban observation.
Awards: Top 2% scientist recognition (Stanford/Elsevier), UN Habitat Technical Committee member, and expert in EU grant evaluations.
Advising: Supervised projects on wildfire monitoring (Zeinab Shirvani, Puzhao Zhang), population predictions (Stefanos Georganos), and urbanization impacts.
Grants: EO-AI4GlobalChange (Digital Futures), HARMONIA (EU H2020), SAR4Wildfire (FORMAS/ESA), and Climate Change Induced Disaster Management in Africa (EU Erasmus+).
Labs/Teams: Leads the EO-AI4GlobalChange initiative and collaborates with Digital Futures, a cross-disciplinary center addressing societal challenges through digital tech.