My Map Portfolio

I am a second year Environment & Resources Ph.D. student at the Nelson Institute. I will be working with Dr. Janet Silbernagel on an international project at Poyang Lake, the largest fresh water lake in China and an important habitat for cranes and other local threatened species. The collaborative project with International Crane Foundation is investigating the potential consequences of altered hydrology on the local ecosystem through the development of a scenario model which will output spatially explicit alternative futures.

Before attending UW-Madison, I finished a bachelor’s degree in ecology and a master’s degree in environmental science at Minzu University of China in Beijing. My primary research interest is the sustainable development of China’s minority regions and the conservation of ecological natural reserves. For both degrees I conducted significant ecological analyses that provided technological support for natural resource and traditional heritage management. For example, in the provinces of Tibet, Qinghai and Yunnan, I applied ArcGIS to conduct spatial analysis and statistics to solve local environmental issues. Also, I was a research assistant in a program launched by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China. My thesis research focused on creating digital maps of the boundaries of national natural reserves, which cover nearly one third of China’s mainland, based on a combination of remotely sensed data and knowledge from local experts.

During the summer of 2014, I interned at the SPD Planning & Design Corporation in Beijing. I cooperated with University of Michigan graduate students from different backgrounds to work on a Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) project. In this research, we selected a county near the Haihe River as our study area. My job mainly included watershed and potential stream analysis as well as the calculation of ecological sensitive areas. Based on case studies of similar areas in different countries and combined with the GIS outputs, I suggested wise water management strategies.

Besides my study and research, I like to be involved in various campus events and activities. I enjoy dancing, traveling and making friends from different cultures.