Dr Xiao Li

Xiao joined the TSU in September 2022 as a senior research associate in urban mobility. His research lies at the intersection of Geographic Information Science (GIS), Spatial Data Science, and Transport Geography.

Xiao received his Ph.D. degree in Geography (GIS Transport) from Texas A&M University (US) in 2019. Before joining TSU, he worked as an associate transportation researcher within the Mobility Analysis Program of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute for two years, where he has led and participated in multiple projects sponsored by USDOT, FHWA, TxDOT, University Transportation Centers (UTC). He was also an affiliated Kinder Scholar in the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University (2020-2022).

Xiao currently serves on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Standing Committee on Geographic Information Science and leads the paper review work as the paper review coordinator. He is also a member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Data Committee and the Spatial Decision Support Consortium (SDSC).

Xiao's primary research interests are in the development of geocomputational algorithms, applications, and tools to enhance transport safety, accessibility, and sustainability by integrating emerging geospatial data sources, theories, and computing technologies.

From the applied science perspective, his research explores the value of various emerging geographic data sources (e.g. smartphone data, connected vehicle data, street view images) in transport and urban research and generates innovative crowdsourcing solutions based on these data to solve different transport challenges.

From the social science perspective, his research interests include exploring the relationships between humans and transport systems and estimating the impacts of disruptive technologies (e.g. CAV) on socially different population groups and communities.

At the TSU, he will be exploring questions about road safety, the consequences of new technologies such as autonomous vehicles for transport systems, and social inequalities in everyday mobility.

Select publications are featured in the list below (see Google Scholar for full overview).