Introduction

Dr. Rui Cao is an Assistant Professor at the Thrust of Urban Governance and Design, Society Hub, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) where he leads the RUI (Responsible Urban Intelligence) Lab . He is specialized in GIScience and particularly interested in GeoAI and Urban Informatics, with an ultimate goal of contributing to sustainable and human-centered smart cities for the benefit of society.

HKUST(GZ) Homepage | RUI Lab | Google Scholar | ResearchGate | Email

Join Us

[***📢] We have opportunities for Postdoc, PhD, MPhil, RA, Visiting Scholar positions at the RUI Lab . We welcome motivated students and researchers to join us.

• Learn more about the openings: Click here .
• For inquiries, please contact Dr. Rui Cao .

Latest News

• January 2026: Our new paper “GeoMarX: Empowering Geospatial Marking and Annotation for Complex Targets in Urban Environments” has been accepted by Urban Informatics.
• December 2025: Dr. Rui Cao delivered a keynote speech “Mapping the Unseen: GeoAI-Empowered Spatial Sensing and Analytics for Urban Informal Settlements in China” at the International Conference on Social Computing (ICSC 2025) in Shanghai, China.
• December 2025: Our new paper “Mapping the vanishing and transformation of urban villages in China” has been published in Sustainable Cities and Society, as part of the special issue Integrating AI into Sustainable Urban Development: Planning Approaches and Strategies. Check it out here . It has been covered by major media outlets including Xinhua News , China Daily , etc.