Updated on 2022-3-9

Kangning Huang
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
New York University Shanghai
Email: kangning.huang@nyu.edu

EMPLOYMENT
2022.6–now Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, NYU Shanghai
2022.1–2022.5 Visiting Assistant Professor Faculty Fellow, NYU New York
2020.1–2021.12 ASP Postdoctoral Fellow, NCAR

EDUCATION
2020 Ph.D., Urbanization and Global Change
Yale University, School of the Environment
2014 M.S., Cartography and Geographic Information System
Sun Yat-sen University, School of Geography and Planning
2011 B.S., Geographic Information System
Sun Yat-sen University, School of Geography and Planning

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Environmental impact from urbanization and climate change (paper: 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
Future urbanization and its interaction with climate change (paper: 2, 4, 5, 7, 8; grant: 2)
Urban clmate impact assessment and reduction (paper: 1, 3, 16, 17; grant: 1)

AWARDS
2022 Shanghai Leading Talents Program, Distinguished Young Scholars
2020 NCAR Advanced Study Program Postdoctoral Fellowship
2017 NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship
2012 P. R. China National Graduate Scholarship

GRANTS
2017–2019 1. “Modeling the water requirement for urban heat island mitigation with multi-
sensor and multi-temporal remote sensing data,” funded by NASA Earth and
Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) Program ($120,000).
2017–2018 2. “The compound heat extreme in China from the urban heat island effect and
climate change,” funded by Yale Tropical Resources Institute Fellowship, Yale
Hixon Fellowship Grant, and Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies Doctoral Pilot
Grant ($16,400).
Updated on 2022-3-9

PUBLICATIONS
Journal Articles, Under Review
1. Kangning Huang, Michelle L. Bell, Brian Stone Jr., Olga V. Wilhelmi, Xuhui Lee,
Karen C. Seto. Contributions of future socioeconomic changes and urban growth to
global heatwave risks. In Prep.
Journal Articles, Accepted & Published (Google Scholar citations: 945, h-index: 12)
2. Kangning Huang, Jiye Leng, Yong Xu, Xinwei Li, Meng Cai, Ran Wang, Chao Ren.
2021. Facilitating urban climate forecasts in rapidly urbanizing regions with land-use
change modeling. Urban Climate. 36, 100806.
3. Kangning Huang, Xuhui Lee, Brian Stone Jr., Jason Knievel, Michelle L. Bell, Karen C.
Seto. 2021. Persistent increases in nighttime heat stress from urban expansion despite
heat island mitigation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 126(4),
e2020JD033831.
4. Pak Shing Yeung, Jimmy Chi-Hung Fung, Chao Ren, Yong Xu, Kangning Huang, Jiye
Leng, Michael Mau-Fong Wong. 2020. Investigating future urbanization’s impact on
local climate under different climate change scenarios in mega-urban regions: A case
study of the Pearl River Delta, China. Atmosphere. 11(7), 771.
5. Yimin Chen, Xia Li, Kangning Huang, Ming Luo, Minyi Gao. 2020. High-Resolution
Gridded Population Projections for China Under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways.
Earth’s Future. 8(6), e2020EF001491.
6. Xiaoping Liu, Yinghuai Huang, Xiaocong Xu, Xuecao Li, Xia Li, Philippe Ciais, Peirong
Lin, Kai Gong, Alan Ziegler, Anping Chen, Peng Gong, Jun Chen, Guohua Hu, Yimin
Chen, Shaojian Wang, Qiusheng Wu, Kangning Huang, Lyndon Estes, Zhenzhong
Zeng. 2020. High spatiotemporal resolution mapping of global urban change reveals fast
urban expansion from 1985 to 2015. Nature Sustainability. 3, 564-570.
7. Guangzhao Chen, Xia Li, Xiaoping Liu, Xun Liang, Jiye Leng, Yao Yao, Yue'an Qiu,
Qianlian Wu, Kangning Huang. 2020. Global projections of future urban land expansion
under shared socioeconomic pathways. Nature Communication. 11(1): 537.
8. Kangning Huang, Xia Li, Xiaoping Liu, Karen C. Seto. 2019. Projecting global urban
land expansion and heat island intensification through 2050. Environmental Research
Letters. 14(11): 114037. (Media coverage: Yale News, E&E News, Scientific American;
Open database: WRI-Resource Watch)
9. Tango Hu, Jiahong Liu, Gang Zheng, Dengrong Zhang, Kangning Huang. 2019.
Evaluation of historical and future wetland degradation using remote sensing imagery
and land-use modeling. Land Degradation and Development. 31(1): 65-80.
10. Robert I. McDonald, Andressa V. Mansur, Fernando Ascensão, M'Lisa Colbert, Katie
Crossman, Thomas Elmqvist, Andrew Gonzalez, Burak Güneralp, Dagmar Haase, Maike
Hamann, Oliver Hillel, Kangning Huang, Belinda Kahnt, David Maddox, Andrea
Pacheco, Henrique Pereira, Karen Seto, Rohan Simkin, Brenna Walsh, Alexandra S
Werner, Carly Ziter. 2019. Research gaps in knowledge of the impact of urban growth on
biodiversity. Nature Sustainability. 3: 16-24.
Updated on 2022-3-9

11. Siyu Chen, Xiaorui Zhang, Jintai Lin, Jianping Huang, Dan Zhao, Tiangang Yuan,
Kangning Huang, Yuan Luo, Zhuo Jia, Zhuo Zang, Yue’an Qiu, Li Xie. 2019. Fugitive
road dust PM2.5 emission and their potential health impacts. Environmental Science &
Technology. 53(14): 8455-8465.
12. Xiaoping Liu, Shuli Chen, Li Zhuo, Jun Li, Kangning Huang. 2018. Multi-sensor image
registration by combining local self-similarity matching and mutual information.
Frontiers of Earth Science. 12(4): 779-790.
13. Siyu Chen, Nanxuan Jiang, Jianping Huang, Xiaoguang Xu, Huiwei Zhang, Zhou Zhang,
Kangning Huang, Xiaocong Xu, Yun Wei, Xiaodan Guan, Xiaorui Zhang, Yuan Luo,
Zhiyuan Hu, Taichen Feng. 2018. Quantifying contributions of natural and anthropogenic
dust emission from different climate regions. Atmospheric Environment. 191: 94-104.
14. Jiayong Liang, Xiaoping Liu, Kangning Huang, Xia Li, Xun Shi, Yaning Chen. 2015.
Improved snow depth retrieval by integrating microwave brightness temperature and
visible/infrared reflectance. Remote Sensing of Environment. 156: 500-509.
15. Jiayong Liang, Xiaoping Liu, Kangning Huang, Xia Li, Dagang Wang, Xianwei Wang.
2013. Automatic registration of multi-sensor images using an integrated spatial and
mutual information (SMI) metric. IEEE Transaction on Geoscience and Remote Sensing,
52(1): 603-615.
16. Kangning Huang, Xiaoping Liu, Xia Li, Jiayong Liang, Shenjing He. 2012. An
improved artificial immune system for seeking the Pareto front of land-use allocation
problem in large areas. International Journal of Geographical Information Science,
27(5): 922-946.
17. Xiaoping Liu, Xia Li, Xun Shi, Kangning Huang, Yilun Liu. 2012. A multi-type ant
colony optimization (MACO) method for optimal land use allocation in large areas.
International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 26(7): 1325-1343.
Books
1. Kelly Aho, Tirthankar Chakraborty, Bowen Fang, Kangning Huang, Ava Liang, Natalie
Schultz, Charlotte Stanley, Anna Walsh, Zhongwang Wei, Yichen Yang, Bowen Zhao,
Xuhui Lee. 2017. Fundamentals of Boundary-Layer Meteorology: Solutions Manual.
Springer International Publishing. ISBN: 978-3-319-60853-2.
Reports
1. Lead author. Nature in the Urban Century: A global assessment of where and how to
conserve nature for biodiversity and human wellbeing. 2018. The Nature Conservancy.

PRESENTATIONS AND CONFERENCES

Invited talks
2019 “Future global urban land expansion and limits of urban adaptations.” Hotspot
Cities Symposium. University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA.
2017 “Forecasting urban land expansion and heat island intensification globally
through 2050.” Silk Road Innovation Forum on Surveying, Remote Sensing, and
Updated on 2022-3-9

Geographical Information Sciences. Xi’an University of Science and

Technology, Xi’an, China.
2017 “Urbanization, climate adaptation and resource constraints.” The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Sessions organized
2018 “Building resilience to natural hazards by utilizing citizen science and
understanding compound hazards.” American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting,
Washington, DC.
Oral presentations
2019 “Urban expansion neutralizes heatwave-risk reduction by socioeconomic
development.” 16th International Conference on Urban Health, Xiamen, China.
2018 “Escalating heat stress by mid-century from large-scale urban land expansion.”
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, Washington, DC, USA.
2018 “Global forecasts of urban land expansion and heat island intensification by
2050 and the implications for climate mitigation.” International Conference on
Systematizing and Upscaling Urban Solutions for Climate Change Mitigation,
Berlin, Germany.
2018 “A spatial lag model for global urban heat island.” American Association of
Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA.
2016 “Contributions to augmented compound urban temperature extreme (ACUTE)
from climate change and the urban heat island effect.” Urban Transitions Global
Summit, Shanghai, China.
2013 “Improving un-gauged hydrological modeling by assimilating GRACE
Terrestrial Water Storage data.” American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San
Francisco, CA, USA.
2012 “An artificial immune system for multi-objective land-use allocation (AIS-
MOLA).” International Conference on GeoInformatics, Hong Kong, China.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2022 Instructor, “Cities at a Crossroads: Environmental Challenges and
Opportunities in Cities,” SOCS-SHU 208, NYU-SH.
2021 Guest lecturer, “Environmental Studies Senior Seminar,” ENVST-UA 900,
NYU-NY.
2020 Guest lecturer, “Natural and Socioeconomic Factors Shaping Environmental
Health”, One Health Training, a master-level course by Animal Dialogue.
2020 Instructor, “Introduction to Google Earth Engine”, at Research Application
Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Updated on 2022-3-9

2015-2017 Teaching Assistant for three semesters, holding office hours, “Modeling
Geographic Objects”, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies,
instructor: C. Dana Tomlin.

SERVICE
Journal Manuscript Review
Environmental Research Letters;
Sustainable Cities and Society;
International Journal of Geographical Information Science;
Nature Geoscience;
Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres;
Atmospheric Environment;
Earth’s Future;
Urban Climate;
Atmosphere;
Frontiers of Earth Science.
Journal Editorship
Guest editor, Atmosphere, Special Issue “Hazards, Urbanization, and Climate Change.”
Report Review
Heat Wave Guide for Cities. 2019. Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.
Guide for Urban Integrated Hydro-Meteorological, Climate and Environmental Services. 2018.
World Meteorology Organization.
Departmental Service
Developer of Cambodian Genocide Program Geographic Database, Yale University Library.
Member of Professional Development Committee, Advanced Study Program, NCAR.

MEDIA COVERAGE
“Study: Swath of Natural Habitat Larger Than the UK Will Be Urbanized By 2030.” By Leslie
Lee, Texas A&M Today, 2020-01-30, available at: https://today.tamu.edu/2020/01/30/study-
swath-of-natural-habitat-larger-than-the-uk-will-be-urbanized-by-2030/
“Urban Heat Islands Mean Warming Will Be Worse in Cities.” By Chelsea Harvey, Scientific
American and E&E News, 2019-11-21, available at:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/urban-heat-islands-mean-warming-will-be-worse-in-
cities/
“For Some Urban Areas, Warming Climate is Only Half the Threat.” By Kevin Dennehy, Yale
News and Science Daily, 2019-11-14, available at: https://environment.yale.edu/news/article/for-
some-urban-areas-warming-climate-is-only-half-the-threat/.
“Respite from the Urban Heat Island? Study Eyes Costs of Irrigation as Remedy.” By Kevin
Dennehy, Yale News, 2017-07-20, available at:
Updated on 2022-3-9

https://environment.yale.edu/news/article/respite-from-the-urban-heat-island-yale-study-eyes-
costs-of-irrigation-as-remedy/

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
Land Use / Cover Change Modeling; Hydrometeorological Modeling; Spatial Data Analysis;
Nonlinear Optimization; Data Assimilation; Image Processing;
ArcGIS; QGIS; Google Earth Engine; ENVI; R; MATLAB; NCL; Fortran; Python.

LANGUAGES
English (fluent); Mandarin (native); Cantonese (native).

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP
American Association of Geographers
American Geophysical Union