About
Xiaogang (Marshall) Ma is an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Idaho. He received his Ph.D. degree of Earth Systems Science and GIScience from University of Twente, Netherlands in 2011, and then completed postdoctoral training in Data Science and Semantic eScience at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His research focuses on deploying data science in the Semantic Web to support cross-disciplinary collaboration and scientific discovery, with broad interests in participatory knowledge engineering, data interoperability and provenance, and visualized exploratory analysis of Big and Small Data. Ma was one of the four invited early-career panelists at the 2016 International Data Week. He is active in international societies of data science and geoinformatics, including ACM SIGWEB, CODATA, ESIP, RDA, GSA, AGU and IAMG. Ma received the Science of Team Science (SciTS) Meritorious Contribution Award in 2018, the IAMG A.B. Vistelius Research Award in 2015, and the inaugural ICSU-WDS Data Stewardship Award in 2014. He won the ESIP Funding Friday Competition Award twice in 2013 and 2012.
***Announcement***: We are looking for NSF REU interns of data science for Spring 2021. Drop me a message if you are interested.
Education
- Postdoctorate of Sloan DCO Data Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 06/2012-06/2014
- Ph.D. in Earth Systems Science and GIScience, ITC, University of Twente, The Netherlands, 11/2011
- Dr.Eng. (with distinction) in Geoinformatics Engineering, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 12/2009
- B.Eng. (with distinction) in Land Resources Management, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 06/2002
Curriculum Vitae
Career
- Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Idaho, 08/2016-Present
- Affiliate Faculty, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Idaho, 2018-Present
- Associate Research Scientist, Tetherless World Constellation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 06/2014-08/2016
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, Tetherless World Constellation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 06/2012-06/2014
- Adjunct Faculty, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 01/2013-05/2013
- Researcher, University of Twente, The Netherlands, 12/2011-05/2012
Honors and Awards
- 2019, Funding Friday Award, Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (my postdoc is leading author)
- 2019, Best Poster Award at the 2019 University of Idaho Computer Science Industrial Advisory Board Meeting (my student is leading author)
- 2018, Frontiers Spotlight Award Finalist (my paper is in one of the 10 shortlisted article collections)
- 2018, SciTS Meritorious Contribution Award, Science of Team Science (SciTS) 2018 Conference, Galveston, TX
- 2017, Guest Professor of Computer Science at China University of Geosciences, Wuhan
- 2016, Panelist, International Data Forum, Denver, CO
- 2015, NSF-EarthCube Distinguished Lecturer
- 2015, Andrei Borisovich Vistelius Research Award, International Association for Mathematical Geosciences
- 2015, Best Paper Nomination, Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP)
- 2015, Vespucci Institute 2015 - Spatial Ontologies for e-Science
- 2014, Inaugural WDS Data Stewardship Award, International Council for Science-World Data System
- 2013, Funding Friday Award, Federation of Earth Science Information Partners
- 2012, Funding Friday Award, Federation of Earth Science Information Partners
- 2012, Councilor Nominee, International Association for Mathematical Geosciences
- 2011, Top 25 Hottest Articles (Jul.–Sept., 2011), Computers & Geosciences, Elsevier
- 2011–present, Travel Grants awarded by: NSF-EarthCube (3), NSF-RDA (1), NSF-EarthRates (1), CAES (1), A.P. Sloan Fdn. (8), W.M. Keck Fdn. (3), USGS (1), Univ. of Oxford (1), Columbia Univ. (2), Smithsonian Inst. (1), UCLA (1), McGill Univ. (1), CIW (1), GSA (1), Ohio State Univ. (1), ICSU-WDS (1), Google (1), IAMG (1), ESIP (1), CODATA (2), Global Young Academy (1), CUG (2)