Yao-Yi Chiang

I am an Associate Professor at the Computer Science & Engineering Department, University of Minnesota

I was an Associate Professor (Research) at the Spatial Sciences Institute, University of Southern California (2011 - 2021).

Reach me by email at yaoyichi@gmail.com or yaoyi@umn.edu.


I work on Spatial AI topics. I am interested in developing data-driven methods that can take advantage of domain knowledge to solve complex problems. For example, we built machine learning algorithms that incorporate spatial science techniques for air quality prediction and imagery recognition. I also enjoy building working systems with my students and doing consulting work related to my research.


I used to teach data mining, advanced spatial computing, spatial databases, and geospatial data integration at USC.


New course at UMN: Spatial Enabled Artificial Intelligence


Sprin 2023 CSCI-5523 at UMN: Introduction to Data Mining


Some links about me: bio, cv, lab, lab (old USC one), google scholar, Linkedin, and my talks:

at UCGIS on Machines Reading Maps:

at ISI on Spatial AI:



Publications/Presentations:

This list is updated infrequently. Please see my cv for the latest publications.


If you have scrolled all the way to see this sentence, you might as well check out my PhD thesis and defense presentation. (My PhD supervisor is Craig Knoblock, to whom I am eternally grateful.)