Research Associate

Public Health Modelling Group

Has now left the Unit

Current work and interests

Yuchen was a Research Associate at the Public Health Modelling group working with Professor James Woodcock. Yuchen’s research focus in his current role lies in GIScience, public health, and transportation. His main tasks include spatial data mining, transportation simulation, urban visual intelligence, environmental auditing, spatial statistics modelling, and geo-visualization. Yuchen left the Unit in March 2024.

Current projects contribution

• Joining Impact Models of Transport with spatial measures of the Built Environment – JIBE Project
• Global and local health impact assessment of transport – GLASST Project

Background and experience

Yuchen holds a Ph.D. in Geography from The Ohio State University and a M.S. degree in Geographical Information Science from Eastern Michigan University. He was a graduate research associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis (CURA), and the Institute of Geospatial Research and Education (IGRE).

Yuchen’s main research interests include geospatial data analytics, health geography, social-environmental justice, transportation, and urban system. Yuchen is an urban data enthusiast, he is always passionate about finding solutions to complex urban environment health problems/issues through developing novel analysis and modelling techniques. His Ph.D. dissertation applies new space-time methods and leverages novel sources of high-resolution geographic data to achieve a more nuanced understanding of the geographic dynamics of the opioid crisis and its social and neighborhood determinants at the urban scale.

Publications

• Publications on Google Scholar
• Publications on Research Gate

Selected publications

• Li Y & Xie Y. (2018). A new urban typology model adapting data mining analytics to examine dominant trajectories of neighborhood change: a case of metro Detroit. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108(5), 1313-1337.
• Li Y, Hyder A, Southerland LT, Hammond G, Porr A & Miller HJ (2020). 311 service requests as indicators of neighborhood distress and opioid use disorder. Scientific reports 10(1), 1-11.
• Li Y, Miller HJ, Root ED, Hyder A & Liu D. (2022). Understanding the role of urban social and physical environment in opioid overdose events using found geospatial data. Health & Place 75, 102792.
• Stiles J, Li Y & Miller HJ (2022). How does street space influence crash frequency? An analysis using segmented street view imagery. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science 23998083221090962.