Yan Wang

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER)
Assistant Professor
(352) 294-3376
Antevy Hall

Areas of Focus:  Sustainability (Built Environment Resilience, Smart Buildings/Cities) building sustainability through resilient built environment research and better infrastructure planning for emerging technologies to reduce GHG emission.

Bio: Dr. Yan Wang is the founder and director of the Urban Agility and Resilience Lab. She is an Assistant Professor of Urban & Regional Planning and a founding faculty member of FIBER within the College of Design, Construction and Planning at the University of Florida. Dr. Wang’s research focuses on developing and applying computational tools to quantity and manage urban resilience in response to disruptions, including hazards and emerging technologies. Over the past decade, Dr. Wang’s research has made contributions to answer how resilience can be measured, explained, and enhanced within built and digital communities. Her pioneering work explores the intersection of urban resilience and urban analytics, particularly the roles of spatial planning and crisis informatics. Recognized as one of the Top 5 female scholars in urban analytics worldwide, Dr. Wang has published over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers and has played a pivotal role in securing ~$2.5 million in research funding, including seven federal awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Prior to UF, Prof. Wang earned her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech. She also holds a master’s degree in asset valuation (BJTU) and a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering and management (BJTU) from the school of economics and management. Her awards include ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering Accolade Best Paper Award (2021), Weather Ready Research Fellowships, Natural Hazard Center (2021), Mitigation Matters Award, Natural Hazard Center (2020), UF Excellence Awards for Assistant Professors (2022), UF Global Research Fellow (2018), UF Research Promotion Initiative Award (2021), UF Great Teaching Certificate (2021), DCP Excellence in Research Award (2021) and Virginia Tech IGEP BioBuild Fellowship (2015-2018). Her teaching efforts primarily contribute to tailored pedagogies and contextualized curricula for urban analytics within planning programs, particularly for the Urban Analytics Program within the Department of Urban and Regional Planning.

Research Topics

Urban Resilience; Urban Analytics; Spatial and Infrastructure Planning; Crisis Informatics; Human Dynamics; Responsible AI; Smart and Connected Communities.

Affiliations

Founding Faculty, Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER)

Founder, Urban Agility and Resilience Laboratory

Affiliate Faculty, UF Informatics Institute

Affiliate Faculty, UF Transportation Institute

Affiliate Faculty, Warren B. Nelms Institute for the Connected World

Awards

University of Florida Excellence Awards for Assistant Professors (2022)

ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering Honorable Mention Award (2021)

University of Florida Research Promotion Initiative Award (2021)

Excellence in Research Award, College of Design, Construction and Planning (2021)

Great Teaching Certificate, UF Center for Teaching Excellence (2021)

Weather Ready Research Fellowships, Natural Hazard Center (NSF &NOAA) (2021)

Mitigation Matters Award, Natural Hazard Center, 2020

Global Research Fellow, by University of Florida, November 8, 2018

Virginia Tech IGEP BioBuild Fellowship, by Virginia Tech, Aug. 2015 – May 2018

Selected Grants

2024-2025 PI: RAPID: Assessing Urgent Time Use Dynamics Among Time-Poor Populations in Preparation for Hurricane Helene and Milton
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2505675)
Program: CMMI-HDBE-Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment

2024-2025 PI: Investigating Neighborhood Mobility Resilience and Aging Vulnerability under Environmental Shocks
Sponsor: National Institute on Aging, Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at the University of Florida
Program: Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) Pilot Study

2023-2026 Co-PI: Collaborative Research: SaTC: CORE: Medium: Information Integrity: A User-centric Intervention
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2323794)
Program: CNS-Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace

2023-2026 PI: Spatial Explanation and Planning for Resilience of Community-Based Small Businesses to Environmental Shocks
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2316450)
Program: CMMI-HDBE-Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment

2022-2023 Faculty: GulfSouth Studio
Sponsor: The National Academy of Sciences Engineering and Medicine

2021-2022 PI: SCC-PG: SmartCurb: Building Smart Urban Curb Environments
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2124858)
Program: Smart and Connected Communities – Planning Grants

2020-2021 PI: RAPID: Dynamic Interactions between Human and Information in Complex Online Environments Responding to SARS-COV-2.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2028012)
Program: CMMI-Humans, Disasters and Built Environment

2020-2021 Co-PI: SCC-PG: Coordinated Safety Management Across Smart Communities
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #1951816)
Program: Smart and Connected Communities – Planning Grants

2018-2019 PI (Sub award): RAPID: Discovering Crises within Crises – Real-Time Detection, Tracking and Visualization of Emergent Crises in Hurricanes.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #1760645)
Program: CISE-Information & Intelligent Systems

2021-2022 PI: Weather Ready Research Fellowship: Assessing the Impact of Geo-Targeted Warning Messages on Residents Evacuation Decisions Before a Hurricane
Sponsor: Natural Hazards Center (flow from NSF and NOAA)

2021-2021 Key Personnel: Upper Suwannee River Resilience Columbia County and The Town of White Springs
Sponsor: Florida Department of Economic Opportunity

2021 PI: Assessing Disaster Impact in Real Time (ADIR): A Data-Driven System Integrating Human, Hazards, and the Built Environment
Sponsor: UF Office of the Provost-Research Promotion Initiative Award

2020-2021 PI: Examining Digital Vulnerability to Flooding Among Subsidized Housing Residents in Florida.
Sponsor: Natural Hazards Center-Mitigation Matters Research Program.

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