(17-02-2025) On Thursday, 6 February 2025, Xueqing Liu successfully defended her PhD: " Interconnected Cities, Integrated Markets: Dynamics of Urban Networks in Explaining Regional Market Integration in China’s Megacity-regions"

Supervisors Prof. Dr. Frank Witlox, Ghent University Prof. Dr. Ben Derudder, KU Leuven, Ghent University

Examination Committee Prof. Dr. Nico Van de Weghe(Chair), Ghent University Prof. Dr. Kurt Fuellhart, Ghent University Prof. Dr. Jonathan Beaverstock, University of Bristol Dr. Yuting Yang, KU Leuven Prof. Dr. Weiyang Zhang, East China Normal University

Congratulations Xueqing!

(16-01-2025) In January 2025, several researchers from Social and Economic Geography participated in the TRB annual meeting in Washington DC, a premier global gathering of transportation professionals, featuring thousands of presentations that showcase cutting-edge research in transportation. Tanhua Jin's paper (Evaluating the Potential of the ‘15-Minute City’ Concept in the United States via Activity-Based Mobility Patterns) won the Best Paper Award from the TRB2025 AED20 Committee on Urban Transportation Data and Information Systems.

Co-authors: Kailai Wang, Yanan Xin, Jian Shi, Ye Hong and Frank Witlox

(07-10-2024) Ghent University's Department of Geography is seeking to fill a full-time position for an Assistant Professor in Human Geography, with a specialization in sustainable socio-spatial transitions in land use.

More details about the position and how to apply, see:

https://jobs.ugent.be/job/Ghent-Professor-in-Human-Geography-9000/804585002/

(05-09-2024) On August 22, 2024, SEG members met with colleagues from NUAA. During the meeting, introductions were made, mutual research ideas were exchanged, and the existing collaboration with NUAA was reviewed and extended.

Were present from NUAA side:

• HU Minghua, Professor, Deputy Director of State Key Laboratory of Air Traffic Management System, NUAA
• WANG Zhongye, Director of Administrative Committee of Jiangjunlu Campus , NUAA
• BU Jian, Assistant Professor of College of Aerospace Engineering, NUAA
• WANG Yanjun, Professor, College of Civil Aviation, NUAA
• PENG Ying, Assistant Professor, College of Civil Aviation, NUAA
• TIAN Wen, Associate Professor, College of Civil Aviation, NUAA

(22-05-2024) On Monday 21 MAY 2024, prof. Mingshu WANG from Glasgow University visited the Department and gave a lecture on “Graph Convolutional Networks for Street Network Analysis”.

Prof Wang is a Senior Lecturer (Tenured Associate Professor) in Geospatial Data Science at the University of Glasgow. He is also a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) and a visiting researcher at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on developing and applying GIScience methods and big data analytics to understand urban systems and development. Empirically, he investigates the relationship between urban structure and city performance at the macro-scale and the relationship between the built environment and collective human behavior at the micro-scale. He has received research grants from Dutch Research Council (NWO), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Microsoft. He is an Editor of Asian Geographer and an Associate Editor of ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, and Regional Studies, Regional Science.

(21-05-2024) We are proud to announce that two researchers will join the Department of Geography as postdocs of the Research Foundation Flanders - FWO:

• Dr. Sofie Annys will study the socio-hydrological resilience of Farmer-Led Irrigation Developments in Ethiopia and Ghana. She received a Senior Fellowship from the Interdisciplinary Panel and will be supervised by Prof. Amaury Frankl.

• Dr. Tanhua Jin will focus on people’s experienced social segregation in daily activity spaces in Belgium and Estonia. She received a Junior Fellowship from the Science and Technology Panel W&T9 and will be supervised by Prof. Frank Witlox.

Wishing both of them the best of luck in their new endeavors!