Dr. Baozhang Chen is a Research Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at IGSNRR, CAS. He holds dual Ph.D. degrees from the University of British Columbia (Canada) and China University of Mining and Technology, and serves as the Chief Professor for land surface earth system modeling at UCAS. Before returning to China in 2009 under the CAS “Hundred Talents Program” (Outstanding Talent category), he held professorial positions at the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, and Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Canada.

Dr. Chen is currently Executive Vice President of the International Society of Natural Resources (ISNR) and Chair of its Remote Sensing and GIS Division. He serves on the editorial boards of over ten journals, includingScientific Data (Nature Portfolio) andGeographical Research, and has acted as Guest Editor for several special issues. He is a member of the Technical Committee for Carbon Monitoring and Assessment Pilot Projects of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) of China. He previously served as Chief Scientist of the Greenhouse Gas and Carbon Neutrality Monitoring and Assessment Center of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), and was a member of the inaugural review committee following the reform of the CAS Academician election procedures, an expert reviewer for the “Changjiang Scholars Program” sponsored by Ministry of Education and a reviewer for the NSFC Young Scientists Fund (Categories A and B).

Primary research interests: data–model assimilation, carbon monitoring and accounting, carbon assimilation and inversion systems, resource and environmental remote sensing, spatial intelligence integration, land surface earth system modeling, and AI-driven model development for climate change response. He has independently developed the Dynamic Land Model (DLM), the global high-resolution carbon assimilation inversion systems (CT-China and 3-CAS), and the high-resolution nested Regional Carbon Assimilation System (RCAS).

Dr. Chen has led or served as a core member on more than 10 Canadian NSERC and CFCAS national projects. In China, he has directed over 20 national-level research programs, including key projects and original exploration key projects of the NSFC, the National 973 and 863 Programs, the National Key Technology R&D Program, and the National Key R&D Program of China. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers in journals includingNature Communications,Science Bulletin,Earth’s Future,Global Change Biology, andRemote Sensing of Environment. Dr. Chen is the sole author of two monographs and co-author of three others, and holds more than 10 national invention patents as the lead inventor.

Zhang Daquan, male, born in December 1976, has successively worked at Liaoning Chemical Geology Prospecting Institute, Resource Evaluation Department of China Geological Survey, Oil and Gas Resource Investigation Center, Shenyang Geological Survey, and Langfang Natural Resources Comprehensive Survey Center of China Geological Survey. Mainly engaged in the planning research and deployment management of solid mineral, energy mineral, and comprehensive research projects. Published more than 30 articles, undertaken 3 national-level projects, and completed more than 10 major reports. Has rich experience in geological survey project management and field work, and is familiar with the situation analysis, exploration evaluation, and potential assessment of mineral resources, with research on solid minerals, energy minerals, and non-metallic minerals. Has won the second prize of Science and Technology Progress Award of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the second prize of China Geological Survey Achievement Award.

Dr. Rui Zhu is a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at Nanjing Normal University. He is a recipient of the National Young Talents Program of China and a Distinguished Professor of Jiangsu Province. He previously served as a Senior Scientist at the Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore, a Research Assistant Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the MIT Senseable City Laboratory.

Dr. Zhu serves as Chair of the Education Committee of the International Association of Chinese Professionals in Geographic Information Sciences (CPGIS), and has previously served on its Board of Directors. He is also a Council Member and Secretary-General of the International Society of Natural Resources (ISNR).

Research focuses: Geographic Information Science (GIScience) and Energy Geography. He has led multiple research projects funded by A*STAR Singapore, UGC Hong Kong, and NSFC. He has published over 100 SCI-indexed papers in journals includingNature Sustainability,The Innovation, andScience Bulletin. He serves on the editorial boards ofBig Earth Data,Advances in Applied Energy, andEnergy 360.

Dr. Kai Cao is a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University. He is a recipient of the National High-Level Young Talent Program of China and a Zijiang Outstanding Young Scholar. His primary research interests lie in Geographic Information Science (GIScience) and its applications, with particular focus on spatial optimization, spatial big data analytics, and spatial social sciences—including topics such as aging and public health.

Dr. Cao has led multiple national-level research projects and has published over 110 papers. He serves as Associate Editor ofApplied Spatial Analysis and Policy, and on the editorial boards of several leading journals, includingComputers, Environment and Urban Systems,International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, andGeographical Science. He is also a Youth Editorial Board Member ofThe Innovation andActa Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica. He has organized special issues on spatial optimization in prominent GIS journals such asInternational Journal of Geographical Information Science,Environment and Planning B,Transactions in GIS, and co-edited Volume 3 (GIS Applications for Socio-economics and Humanity) of the major GIS reference work “Comprehensive GIS (Elsevier).”

Dr. Cao currently serves as a Council Member of the China Association of Geographic Information Industry (CAGIS), Vice Chair of the Spatio-temporal Intelligence and Public Health Committee, and a member of the Committees on GIS Theory and Methods, and on Marine Spatio-temporal Information. He is an Executive Committee Member of the ACM SIGSPATIAL China Chapter, an Executive Committee Member of the Spatial Social Computing Group of CAAI, and a committee member of the Social Remote Sensing and Geocomputation Committee of CRSAA.