Indiana State University Newsroom

Indiana State University Professor Qihao Weng has been awarded a fellowship to conduct research in Japan as part of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

Weng is one of three researchers selected to participate in the JSPS Short-term S program this year. To be eligible for this program, overseas researchers should be Nobel laureates or recipients of similarly high-level international prizes with exceptionally outstanding records of research achievements and who currently occupy a leading position in their subject field.

Weng's 30-day fellowship is December 2019 through January 2020. During his visit to Japan, Weng will have a tenured position at the University of Tsukuba. He will also visit the University of Tokyo, Chiba University, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST).

The JSPS carries out programs that provide overseas researchers who have an excellent record of research achievements the opportunity to conduct collaborative research, discussions and opinion exchanges with researchers in Japan. These programs are intended to help advance the overseas researchers' activities while promoting science and internationalization in Japan. All fields of the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences are included under this program.

A fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Weng has pioneered urban remote sensing research and is instrumental in shaping it as a field. Through a series of creative and cutting-edge works, Weng invents new algorithms and techniques and has discovered new methods and theories for urban remote sensing.

A faculty member since 2001, Weng joined Indiana State after working briefly at the University of Alabama and obtaining his Ph.D. at the University of Georgia. He currently serves as a professor in the department of earth and environmental systems and has served as director of Indiana State Center for Urban and Environmental Change since 2004. He worked as a senior fellow at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, December 2008-2009.

Weng has made significant and pioneering contributions in the field of geography, and his extensive publication record includes books, book chapters and articles in prestigious journals. He serves as the editor of two important book series, "Taylor and Francis Series in Remote Sensing Applications" and "Taylor and Francis Series in Imaging Science."

Weng's pioneering works have generated enormous citations and attracted thousands of followers worldwide. He is the author of 235 articles and 14 books and has given 110 invited talks and presented 131 papers at professional conferences. According to Google Scholar, as of August 2019, his SCI citation has surpassed 16,000, with H-index of 59. Many of his publications were extremely influential, which is visible, for example, from the fact that 39 of them have more than 100 citations each.

In 2008, Weng received a prestigious NASA senior fellowship. He received the Outstanding Contributions Award in Remote Sensing in 2011 from the American Association of Geographers in 2011, as well as the Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award in 2015. In April 2019, he was given a Taylor & Francis Lifetime Achievements Award.

In 2005 at Indiana State, he was selected as a Lilly Foundation Faculty Fellow, and the following year, he received the Theodore Dreiser Distinguished Research Award. In addition, he was the recipient of 2010 Erdas Award for Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing (first place) and 1999 Robert E. Altenhofen Memorial Scholarship Award, which were both awarded by American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. He was also awarded the Best Student-Authored Paper Award by International Geographic Information Foundation in 1998.

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Photo: https://photos.smugmug.com/Other/Headshot-Proofs/n-hTK8X/UZ-Headshot-Proofs/Qihao-Weng-2018/i-95KzMGF/1/3e46739c/O/May%2023%2C%202018%20Weng%20DSC_7830.jpg -- Qihao Weng