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 specializes in Geographic Information Science (GIScience), with a particular interest in GeoAI and Urban Informatics. His research focuses on developing human-centered urban intelligence by integrating AI, geospatial technologies, and multimodal spatiotemporal data to better understand, simulate, and govern complex urban systems, with the goal of fostering more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable urban futures.
Dr. Cao has published extensively in leading international journals across geographic information science, computer science, and urban science, including featured and ESI highly cited articles. His work has been cited by prestigious journals such as Science, with over 2,100 citations on Google Scholar. His research has also been featured by major media outlets, including Xinhua News, China Daily, etc., reaching over one million views.
He has been awarded national and provincial talent programs and has secured research funding from both academic and industry sources. Dr. Cao serves as an Editorial Board Member and Associate Editor of the Journal of Social Computing . He also serves as a reviewer for major funding agencies, including NSFC and BELSPO, as well as numerous prestigious international journals in geospatial information science, computer science, and urban science. Additionally, he contributed as conference secretary for the Global Smart Cities Summit cum The 3rd International Conference on Urban Informatics (GSCS & ICUI 2023) and a member of organization committee for the 2024 International Conference of Social Computing (ICSC 2024) , the 2026 CAAI Strategic Symposium on Interdisciplinary Research in Social Computing and Social Intelligence , and the 2026 International Conference on Urban Science and Intelligence .