Awards
The AI and Cities: An International Forum for Innovation and Collaboration is pleased to offer three levels of awards to recognize outstanding presentations by postdoc and graduate student presenters at the conference, held virtually on May 9–10, 2025. All registered postdoc and graduate students who present at the conference are eligible to compete for these awards, which celebrate excellence in research and innovation at the intersection of AI and urban studies.
Award Levels
• Best Presentation/Research Award:
Recognizes the most outstanding presentation demonstrating exceptional research, clarity, and impact.
• Excellent presentation/research Awards:
Honors two presentations for their high-quality research and compelling delivery.
• Outstanding presentation/research Awards:
Acknowledges three additional presentations for their notable contributions to AI and urban studies.
Cash prizes for these awards will be granted, but the amounts are contingent on registration fee revenue.
Eligibility and Selection
Eligibility is open to all postdoc and graduate students who have registered and delivered a presentation at the AI and Cities conference. The selection process involves two stages:
• Nomination by Session Moderators: Each session moderator will nominate the best postdoc or graduate student presenter in their session based on criteria including research quality, presentation clarity, and relevance to AI and urban planning.
• Final Selection by Organizing Committee: The conference organizing committee will meet after the conference to review all nominations and select the final awardees, ensuring a fair and rigorous evaluation.
Winners will be announced within one week after the conference.
Announcement of the 2025 Presentation/Research Award Recipients
We are delighted to announce the recipients of the 2025 Presentation/Research Awards for “AI and Cities: An International Forum for Innovation and Collaboration,” held virtually on May 9–10, 2025. These awards recognize outstanding contributions by postdoctoral researchers and graduate students who demonstrated exceptional innovation and impact in AI and cities.
Selected through moderator and committee reviews, the awards include Best Presentation/Research Award, Excellent Presentation/Research Awards, and Outstanding Presentation/Research Awards in each category. Below, we celebrate the recipients in the Postdoctoral Researcher and Graduate Student categories for their remarkable contributions.
A. Postdoctoral Researcher Awards
- Best Presentation/Research Award
• Dr. Yu Zheng, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for the presentation “Intelligent urban planning via deep reinforcement learning”
- Excellent Presentation/Research Awards
• Dr. Xinyu Li, Texas A&M University, for the presentation “Advancing Hazard Resilience: From Complex Modeling to User-Friendly Solutions”
- Outstanding Presentation/Research Awards
• Dr. Shangde Gao, University of Florida, for the presentation “Explainable artificial intelligence-powered building risk assessment model for proactive hurricane response”
• Dr. Yuebing Liang, The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, for the presentation “Generative Urban Design: A Stepwise Approach Integrating Human Expertise with Diffusion Models”
- Honorable Mention
• Dr. Sangung Park, University of Florida, for the presentation “Identifying transferable county-level regional interdependence of the post-disaster recovery process using causal discovery”
• Dr. Sulong Zhou, Texas A&M University, for the presentation “Codesign: An Augmented Reality and AI-Driven Platform for Participatory Campus Digital Twin”
B. Graduate Student Awards
- Best Presentation/Research Awards
• Yoojung Choi, Seoul National University, for the presentation “Urban Building Energy Modeling in Data-Scarce Cities Using Transfer Learning”
• Qing Hou & Qing Zhang, University of Florida, for the presentation “Public Transit Route Design Using Reinforcement Learning with On-demand Micro-transit Data”
• Jaechang Ko, Texas A&M University, for the presentation “Graph neural networks for classification and error detection in 2D architectural detail drawings”
• Kaifa Lu, University of Florida, for the presentation “AI-Driven Approach to Optimize and Automate Shared Micromobility System Design and Planning”
• QianChen Yu, University of Florida, for the presentation “PyRebuild: A Python-based Simulator for AI-Driven Adaptive Resource Allocation in Post-Disaster Housing Recovery”
- Excellent Presentation/Research Awards
• Weishan Bai, Texas A&M University, for the presentation “Leveraging Open-Source EEG Datasets to Understand Emotional Responses in Urban Contexts”
• Yueyan Gu, Virginia Tech, for the presentation “Scalable Transformer-Based Foundation Models for Urban Energy Forecasting”
• Ziyi Guo, University of Florida, for the presentation “Leveraging Graph Attention Network Model for Adaptive Spatial Planning of Social Infrastructure”
• Xuan Li, Hanyang University, for the presentation “Implementing Intelligent Assistants for Open Government Data: Technical Challenges and Policy Implications for Data Democracy”
• Yuan Ping, The University of Texas at San Antonio, for the presentation “Hot Neighborhoods, Moving People: Investigating the Role of Urban Heat Islands in Short-Term Residential Mobility in San Antonio, USA”
• Xiaohao Yang, University of Michigan, for the presentation “Mapping uninhabitable houses in Detroit using large vision-language models”
- Outstanding Presentation/Research Awards
• Haoyue Bai, Arizona State University, for the presentation “Sim-to-Decision: Learning Risk-Free Forward-thinking Decision-Maker with Generative Simulator Feedback in the Loop”
• Tiancheng Huang, Texas A&M University, for the presentation “Generating conceptual landscape design via text-to-image generative AI model”
• DongHwan Ki, The Ohio State University, for the presentation “What and Where Are the Problems? Identifying Detailed Walkability Barriers Using Street View Images and ChatGPT”
• Hyebin Kim, Hanyang University, for the presentation “Exploring Physical and Perceptual Bias in Multimodal LLMs: Evidence from the Global Streetscapes”
• Yanghe Liu, University of Florida, for the presentation “Bridging Urban Planning and AI: A New Studio Pedagogy for Future Planners”
• Haoming Qin, University of Texas at San Antonio, for the presentation “Urban Heat Islands and Social Exposure: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of POI-Based Behavior”
• Meizi You, New York University Shanghai, for the presentation “LLMs + Social Media for Public Perception-Responsive Climate Adaptation Planning”
- Honorable Mention
• Leandry Jieutsa, Montreal University, for the presentation “Theoretical framework for analyzing governance dynamics around urban AI at the municipal level”
• Lili Lin, Seoul National University, for the presentation “Assessing Urban Heat Resilience: Nonlinear Impacts of Urban Form Factors Across Scales Using Machine Learning”
• Xiyu Pan, Georgia Institute of Technology, for the presentation “Exposing inequitable risk estimation of emergency service disruptions during floods”
• Charles Shi, Stanford University, for the presentation “Airys: A one-stop-shop web application to finance resilient public infrastructure across the United States”
These awardees showcased pioneering research and innovative applications of AI in urban contexts, advancing the vision of sustainable and inclusive cities. We extend our gratitude to all participants for their exceptional contributions and to our moderators and the review committee for their diligent evaluation.
For more details about the conference and to view recorded presentations, visit “https://dcp.ufl.edu/urp/ai-and-cities/”.
About the Conference: AI and Cities: An International Forum for Innovation and Collaboration brings together global leaders, researchers, and practitioners to explore AI’s transformative role in urban planning and design and urban science.