Jean-Claude Thill is a Knight Foundation Distinguished Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Geographical Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He completed his Master’s degree in Regional Science (1984) and Ph.D. in Geography (1988) at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He served as Executive Director of the North American Regional Science Council for 7 years, and subsequently as President of the Regional Science Association International. His teaching and research interests include Sustainable Urbanization and Sustainable Mobility, Transportation and Mobility Systems, Geospatial Data Science, Urban Analytics and Smart Cities, Transportation, Economic Organization, and Development, Spatial Modeling, Urban Environments in China and other Emerging Countries, International Comparative Urbanization, Cities, Trade, and Globalization. Moreover, Jean-Claude Thill is a 2012 recipient of the Edward L. Ullman Award for Significant Contributions to Transportation Geography, awarded by the American Association of Geographers. He has been elected Fellow of the American Association of Geographers and of the Regional Science Association International. In 2023, he was recipient of the Walter Isard Ward for lifetime contribution to regional science by the North American Regional Science Council.