Research Group

Shuai Xu received his BS in Geographical Information Science from Sun Yat-Sen University in 2018 and PhD in Remote Sensing from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2024. He specializes in image processing, remote sensing algorithm development, and geospatial time-series analysis. His expertise spans across vegetation and agricultural monitoring that leverages multi-source remote sensing and statistical methods. Shuai’s current research focuses on designing crop switching frameworks to enhance agricultural resilience.

Seongmin Shin is deeply committed to environmental sustainability, with a focus on Climate Change, the Carbon Market, Agroforestry, REDD+, Food Security, and International Development. He completed his master’s degree in International Agricultural Technology and Regional Studies and Spatial Analytics from Seoul National University (SNU). His professional tenure at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Indonesia focused on climate-smart agroforestry systems. Serving as a Forest Restoration Officer at the Global Green Growth Institute in Ethiopia, his work involved monitoring socio-economic and ecological conditions in the project sites. His Ph.D. research focuses on addressing the complex challenges of climate change and improving carbon market access for smallholder farmers in Africa. I chair Seongmin’s dissertation committee.

Hazel Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in Regional Science whose main research area lies in the energy transition in the Global South, focusing on household agency, spatial analysis, and Ethiopia. She is interested in analyzing the socio-technical energy transition (STET) and how we can achieve a just and sustainable energy transition. Prior to joining Cornell, she worked with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), where she was based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and has also worked with the World Bank as a short-term consultant. Her previous research has focused on gender inequality such as gender-based violence in the Rohingya refugee camps, and digital sex crimes in South Korea. She holds a M.I.S. and B.A. degree from Ewha Womans University, South Korea, in development cooperation and international studies, respectively. I chair Hazel’s dissertation committee.

Danning Lu is an environmental social science researcher. She holds MS in environmental science from Yale University, and BA in sociology and BS in environmental science from Wheaton College (IL). She is pursuing a PhD in development studies, with research focus on waste governance, plastics, and circularity. Her overarching interest is the social dimension of change toward environmental sustainability. Danning has researched community gardens in urban China, zero waste movement, and climate change public perception as well as policy support in the United States and China. She has professional experience at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences at Chinese Academy of Sciences, Plastic Free China, and the Wilson Center, especially on plastic policy research and public communication. I chair Danning’s dissertation committee.

Hassan Yakubu is a PhD candidate in City and Regional Planning. His research examines how socio-spatial conditions shape energy transition outcomes across scales in rapidly urbanizing African cities, drawing on quantitative social science and mixed methods. Before Cornell, he earned an MPhil in Planning at Cambridge University, where he was a Commonwealth Scholar, and an M.Arch at the National School of Architecture, Rabat, Morocco. Hassan has professional experience as a research analyst and as lead of the Pedagogical Development and Innovation Unit at the School of Architecture, Planning and Design at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco. He has also practiced as an architect in Rabat and Accra. I serve on Hassan’s dissertation committee.

Autumn Pereira is a PhD student in the School of Integrative Plant Science, whose work focuses on the sustainable adoption of rice growing in the Northeastern United States. In particular, her work assesses the suitability of alternative growing strategies and their impacts greenhouse gas fluxes and microbial communities in these systems. She received her BSc in Biology and Mathematics from McGill University in 2023, and is a Doctoral Scholar with the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. More broadly, her research interests lie in the role of soil microbial communities in shaping larger biogeochemical cycles, and promoting the assembly of beneficial microbiomes to increase ecosystem services. I serve on Autumn’s dissertation committee.

Xinghan Chen is a PhD student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Architecture from Tongji University. His research uses GeoAI, deep learning, and urban big data to study urban form and its sustainability implications, with a particular focus on cities in sub-Saharan Africa. He is broadly interested in data-driven comparative urban research, computational urban design, and understanding how the built environment relates to urban performance. I serve on Xinghan’s dissertation committee.

Shubham Singh is a predoctoral research fellow at the Collaboration for International Development Economics Research (CIDER) at Cornell University. He holds a master’s degree in Development Economics from the University of Sussex, UK. His research interests lie in applied microeconomics, particularly in agriculture, labor markets, and political economy, using experimental methods to investigate how social and economic structures shape development outcomes. Prior to Cornell, Shubham worked as a Research Associate at Indian Statistical Institute in Delhi, contributing to a randomized controlled trial aimed at increasing women’s labor force participation through targeted phone messaging interventions. He also served as a Summer Fellow with Causal Design in Cambodia, a Research Fellow at Development Alternatives, and an undergraduate intern at Sattva Consulting. Outside of research, Shubham enjoys exploring nature, history and food.

Han Huang is a visiting PhD student in the Department of Land Resources Management at Zhejiang University. His research primarily focuses on adaptive governance mechanisms that seek to foster synergy between pastoral ecological conservation and greenhouse gas reduction. His academic interests extend to pastoral governance, multi-level climate policy, and climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. He is also exploring the selection and diffusion of urban climate policy tools to better understand the common logic and differentiated pathways of climate governance across scales.

Shuai Zhou was a postdoctoral research fellow in the research group (2023-2025). He is a demographer and rural sociologist specializing in demographic and health studies, quantitative methods, and geospatial analytics. His research interests include environmental migration, environmental health, spatial demography, and computational social science. Shuai earned his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at the University of South Alabama.

Radine Rafols was a postdoctoral research fellow in the research group (2023-2024). She obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from Syracuse University in 2023. Her papers deal with questions in development, labor, and environmental economics. Her current research focuses on the long-run economic and spatial implications of warming temperatures and sea-level rise in developing nations. Currently she works at the World Bank.

Mercy Abutsa was a professional master student in Global Development at Cornell University (2023-2024). She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mass communication from the University of Jos in Nigeria. Mercy’s research interest revolves around the complex issues of climate change on society. Her research delves into how climate change exacerbates issues such as poverty, conflict, inequality, and food insecurity across Africa. Her work aims to shed light on governance structures and human behavior in the context of climate change. 

Sidney Brandhorst completed her MS in Sustainability at ASU (2020-2022). She completed her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies and Sustainability at Michigan State University where she studied food security at the university level. In graduate school she explored the relationship between different environmental shocks in a system and how they impact both the type and level of conflict that happens. Since 2022, Sidney works as a Development Specialist of the Research Foundation at San Diego State University.

Jingchun Nie was a visiting scholar in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University (2023-2024). He holds the position of associate researcher at the Center of Experimental Economics in Education, affiliated with Shaanxi Normal University. His doctoral degree in Agricultural Economics and Management was obtained from Renmin University of China. His research interests included rural human capital, health economics, education economics, and impact evaluation.

Haiyue Fu was an exchange scholar in the School of Sustainability at ASU (2019-2021). She is Associate Professor from Nanjing Agriculture University. She completed her PhD in Cartography and Geographic Information System at Nanjing University where she studied land use land cover change and land use planning. Her current research focuses on spatial planning, land resource management, and sustainable development in urban areas of China.

Yuan Yuan was a visiting PhD student from the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering of Fudan University (2022-2023). She specializes in urban ecology and studies the impact of natural and anthropogenic activities on urban ecosystems. Her current research focuses on global urban heat island effect and its influencing factors. She is a research scientist at Environmental Research Institute of Jiangxi Province in China.

Yihua Chen was a visiting PhD student from the School of Social Development of East China Normal University (2022-2023). She engages in research of social welfare and policy, with particular interest in the Measuring and alleviating poverty. She has received a Master of Social Work and Policy degree from Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She is Associate Professor at Shandong Normal University.

Shuang Wu was a visiting PhD student from the Department of Land Management at Zhejiang University (2023-2024). Her research interest includes energy transition, rural development and natural resource management. Currently she focuses on exploring the contributions of building energy efficiency to household energy savings and examining the subsequent effects.

Zhaoya Wang was a visiting PhD student from the College of Land Management at Nanjing Agriculture University (2024-2025). Her research interests include urban land use efficiency, production relocation, and the effects on carbon emissions. Currently, her research focuses on investigating the relationships among environmental regulation, industrial transfer, and land use benefits in both Chinese and global contexts.

Yuan Liu was a visiting PhD student from the Department of Land Resource Management at Zhejiang University (2024-2025). Aiming at advancing equitable land access for all, her research interests include land tenure systems and rangeland governance. Additionally, she has a keen interest in understanding the role of community-based approaches in promoting effective natural resource governance.

Ying Tu was a postdoc in the research group (2024-2026). She specializes in remote sensing, geospatial analysis, and quantitative methodologies. Her research focuses on harnessing satellite remote sensing and computational approaches to monitor global environmental changes in support of sustainable development.

Xiaoyu Shang was a visiting PhD student from the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University(2026). Her research focuses on nighttime light remote sensing, with an emphasis on applying nighttime light data to socioeconomic studies and developing algorithms to improve the quality of high-resolution nighttime light imagery. Her work aims to use remote sensing technology in support of sustainable urban and socioeconomic development.

Nor Anisa was an MPS in Global Development (2025-2026). She is a Southeast Asian development practitioner and emerging scholar specializing in inclusive international development, sustainability, and green transformation. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Mulawarman University (2021) and has led impactful humanitarian initiatives, including serving as team leader and educator of Youth Volunteer on Remedial Reading Intervention.

Bharath Chandran was an MPS in Global Development (2025-2026). He holds a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Science and a master’s in Environmental Studies and Resource Management from The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India. He worked with the Tata-Cornell Institute in India, focusing on food systems and climate change. His work involved field-level implementation and monitoring of greenhouse gas reduction strategies, piloting small-scale agrivoltaics and solar-based irrigation projects.

Natalia Butler was an MS student in Natural Resources and the Environment (2024-2026). She is passionate about natural climate solutions and advocating for those most disadvantaged by the dire effects of climate change. Natalia holds a degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Tulane University. During her time at Tulane, she worked with Glass Half Full, an organization that repurposes glass to assist in coastal restoration of Louisiana’s rapidly degrading coastline.