Dr. Chaowei Yang received his BSc and MSc in Physics from Northeastern University from 19991 to 1997, and his PhD from Peking University in 2000. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Calgary from 2000 to 2021. He is a professor of Geographic Information Science at George Mason University and the founding Director of the NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation Center. He also served in many public positions, including as the President of the CPGIS (2004–2005) and the co-founding chair (2009–2010) of AAG CISG. He received multiple national and international awards including the Environment Protection Stewardship Award given by President Obama.