About me

My name is Rongxiang Su (pronounced “Rong-sheeyang”), and I am a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Before joining UIUC, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the MIT Senseable City Lab. I received my Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

My research interests lie in geospatial data science, human mobility, travel behavior, and urban analytics. Broadly, my work seeks to understand mobility processes, travel behavior, and activity patterns in urban systems through the analysis of diverse mobility datasets, including mobile phone location traces, household travel surveys, and emerging forms of urban big data. I am particularly interested in developing computational methods to identify and quantify the spatiotemporal dynamics of daily activities and human interactions. A central theme of my research is examining disparities in human behavior by modeling and predicting activity-travel patterns across diverse socio-geographic contexts, to inform more sustainable, equitable, and inclusive transportation systems and improve access to urban opportunities.

I am always happy to discuss research ideas and potential collaborations. Feel free to reach out to me at rsu at illinois.edu!