Ninghua Wang

Academics:

I am Ninghua, or Nathan. I am a 2nd year Ph.D. student from the joint geography program of San Diego State University and University of California, Santa Barbara. Yes, I spend my Ph.D. in two gorgeous beach towns.

Research:

I am fascinated by geographic patterns. I enjoy reading maps and gaining insights from the patterns shown on map. I study urban structures, crime hot spots, human travel trajectories, and state boundaries.

Expertise: As a geographer, I am also good at making fancy maps. I have a suite of mapping software. I was an engineer by training so I can do programming in many computer languages, Matlab and R. Also if you have any issue related to spatial analysis (means you need to work with spatial data), let me know. I may have some idea.

Plan: I want a deeper understanding of complex science, its history and current development. Also I would like to expend my knowledge on Information Theory. Hopefully I can have a draft paper by the end of my SFI summer school.

Project: I just came up an idea of studying the boundaries of African countries using spatial ABM. The boundaries of African countries, drew two centuries ago during the age of imperialism, was once considered arbitrary but remain quite stable till now. I am wondering that simple boundary negotiation principle may apply to the case here. So I would like to prove it with a spatial ABM.

Personal Interests: Hiking, Jogging, Skiing, Basketball, Badminton, Photography, Salsa and Argentina Tango.