Jiayan is Couse Coordinator and Program Committee Member for MADE. Besides his role at AMS institute, he is Assistant Professor in the Laboratory of Geo-information Science and Re-mote Sensing (GRS) at Wageningen University & Research (WUR).
Jiayan’s research investigates spatial perception, cognition, and behavior in virtual environ-ments, with the overall goal of facilitating the adaptation of cutting-edge technologies to life. He is broadly interested in eXtended Reality (XR) technologies, such as virtual and augmented realities, and their application in spatial cognition, wayfinding, environmental data visualiza-tion, digital twins, and place-based education. He is enthusiastic about data science and gradu-ally transitioning into data-driven approaches (e.g., eye-tracking) for studying the cognitive processing of spatial information in digital simulations.
Before joining WUR, Jiayan was Research Associate in the Emerging Analytics Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (USA) and was a postdoc researcher in Chair of Cognitive Science at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). He received his PhD in Geography from Pennsylvania State University for his research on spatial learning in virtual environments.
Jiayan enjoys the dynamic, interdisciplinary, and practice-oriented nature of AMS. Serving as a lecturer, he hopes to provide MADE students with insights on how to apply geo-information science theories and principles to various metropolitan challenges.
“Experiences at AMS inspire me of unexplored research opportuni-ties for the city and beyond”