SAM Student Paper Competition (John Odland Award)

The SAM Specialty Group traditionally host student paper competitions for both graduate and undergraduate students. Starting 2011, the first prize of the competition will be named John Odland Student Paper Award.

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2024 Winners

1st Prize

Haoyu Wang (University of Texas Austin)
Using Species Distribution Modeling for Geoforensic Analyses

2nd Prize

Mingzheng Yang (Texas A&M University)
Sleepless Cities under Social Isolation: Geographically and Temporally Revealing Circadian Rhythm Disorders through Social Media

3rd Prize


Hao Yang (University of Georgia)
Exploring Human Mobility Patterns: A Novel Approach to Sequential Pattern Mining and Similarity Measurement

Congcong Miao (University of Connecticut)
Assessing network-based traffic crash risk using prospective space-time scan statistic method

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Past Winners

2023

• 1st prize: Changwha Oh (University of Tennessee)
  Spatially informed p-dispersion problem and efficient solution approach
• 2nd prize: Tyler Hoffman (Arizona State University)
  Controlling for spatial confounding and spatial interference in causal inference: Model selection advice from a computational experiment
• 3rd prize:
  • Weiying Lin (Texas A&M University)
    Spatial inequalities in street-tree abundance transpire across scales in Houston, TX
  • DWataru Morioka (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
    Spatially-weighted Network Dual K function: Model Development and Application to Healthy and Unhealthy Food Environment

2022

• 1st prize: Lenka Hašová (University of Bristol)
  Spatial structure of Spatial Interaction: Using Graph structural information in Modelling Bipartite Networks
• 2nd prize: Meiliu Wu (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
  People-based Segregation Indices: Measuring Segregation with Individual’s Activity Space and Demographics in U.S. 50 Largest Cities Using Social Media
• 3rd prize: Mehak Sachdeva (Arizona State University)
  Scale and Local Modeling: New perspectives on voting behavior in the United States
• Honorable mention: Jing Xu (University of California - Santa Barbara)
  Spatial Optimization for Balancing Workloads in Coverage Modeling

2021

• 1st prize: Junghwan Kim (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
  An examination of the effects of the neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP) on the assessment of sociodemographic disparities in air pollution exposures: Evidence from Los Angeles
• 2nd prize: Joe Chestnut (University of Denver)
  Exploring the Utility of Gini Coefficients as a Measure of Temporal Variation in Public Transit Travel Time
• 3rd prize: Jessica Strzempko (Clark University)
  The Flow matrix offers a straightforward alternative to the problematic Markov matrix

2020

• 1st prize: Ziqi Li (Arizona State University)
  Measuring Bandwidth Uncertainty in Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression Using Akaike Weights
• 2nd prize: Nana Luo (San Diego State University)
  Modeling Human Daily Movement in a Spatially and Temporally Explicit Framework: A Simulator Integrating Bayesian Network and Activity-based Models
• 3rd prize: Paul H. Jung (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)
  Multivariate Neighborhood Trajectory Analysis: A Proposal of Functional Data Analysis Approach

2019

• 1st prize: Meifang Li (SunYat-sen University; Dartmouth College)
  Modeling of Communicable Disease Transmissions with Real Human Mobility and Disease Data
• 2nd prize: James Gaboardi (Florida State University)
  A Polygon-Based Approach to Spatial Network Allocation
• 3rd prize: Nastaran Pourebrahim (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
  Modeling Trip Distribution using Twitter data and Machine Learning
• Honorable mention: Jarnardan Mainali (Portland State University)

2018

• 1st prize:
  • Yoo Min Park (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
    Spatiotemporal Analysis of Multi-Contextual Segregation in Urban Areas
  • Levi Wolf (University of Bristol)
    Single- and Multi-Scale Models of Process Spatial Heterogeneity
• 2nd prize: Xiaojun Pu (University of Texas at Dallas)
  Modeling Network Autocorrelation in Spatial Interaction Data: With an Application using Interprovincial Migration Flows of China

2017

• 1st prize: Ashkan Gholamialam (University of Missouri)
  Modeling Alternative Routes for Bicyclists
• 2nd prize: Cody Schank (University of Texas at Austin)
  Using a Novel Model Approach to Assess the Distribution and Conservation Status of the Endangered Baird’s Tapir
• 3rd prize: Wangshu Mu (University of Arizona)
  A Spatial-Knowledge Enhanced Heuristic for the p-Median Problem

2016

• 1st prize: Dara Seidl (San Diego State University)
  Privacy and False Identification in Geomasking Techniques
• 2nd prize: Alexander Hohl (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)
  Accelerated Discovery of Infectious Disease Clusters Using Adaptive Spatiotemporal Domain Decomposition
• 3rd prize:
  • Su Yeon Han (San Diego State University)
    Revisiting the Death of Geography in the Social Network Era: Using Social Media (Twitter) to Measure the Effect of Distance Decay on Spatial Interaction between Cyberspace and Real Space
  • Debbie Blackmore (Portland State University)
    A Geospatial Tool for Wetland Prioritization at the Watershed Scale

2015

• Winners: Sinha Parmanand (University of Texas at Dallas) and Xiang Ye (University at Buffalo-SUNY)
  Moran Correlation Coefficient

2014

• 1st prize: Paul Holloway (University of Texas at Austin)
  Sensitivity Analysis of Step Selection Function Model Parameters
• Honorable mention: Ying Song (Ohio State University)
  Modeling Movement Probabilities within Transportation Networks Using Network Time Prisms and Stochastic Spatio-Temporal Processes

2013

• 1st prize: Ruojing Scholz (Texas State University)
  Detection of dynamic activity patterns at collective scale from large volume trajectory data
• 2nd prize: Jing Gao (University of Buffalo)
  Bias-variance error decomposition for geospatial regression models
• 3rd prize:
  • Luyang Ren (Clark University)
    Implementing Visual Contrast in Viewshed Determination
  • Qiaojue Wang
    

2012

• 1st prize: Elizabeth Delmelle (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)
  The Reciprocal Relationships of Neighborhood Quality of Life Dynamics: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach
• 2nd prize: Ran Wei (Arizona State University)
  Spatial Uncertainty in Forest Management Planning
• 3rd prize: Kangping Si (Clark University)
  Modeling the Interlocking World City Network with Exponential Random Graph (p*) Modelss

2011

• 1st prize: Li Zhou (University of Cincinnati)
  Investigating Gasoline Zone Pricing in Cincinnati by General Linear Modeling
• 2nd prize: Yujia Zhang (Clark University)
  Characterizing Land Changes over Several Points in Time
• 3rd prize: Michael J. Widener (University at Buffalo)
  Developing a Parallel Computational Implementation of AMOEBA for Large Spatial Datasets

2010

• 1st prize: Lina Cao (University of Utah)
• 2nd prize:
  • Xingjian Liu (Texas State University - San Marcos)
  • Woo Jang (University of Georgia)
• 1st place undergraduate student prize: Katherine Johnson (Stanford University)

  (Note: For the first time, SAM awarded a first place undergraduate student prize.)

2009

2008

• 1st prize:
  • Yongwan Chun (University of Texas-Dallas)
    Modeling Network Autocorrelation within Migration Flows by Spatial Eigenvectors
  • Jamison F. Conley (Pennsylvania State University;)
    Using Moment Invariants to Analyze Cluster Shapes and Hypothesize Potential Causes
• 2nd prize: Neeti Neeti (Clark University)
  Modeling Trends in Phenological Curve Shape Properties Using AVHRR-NDVI Data

2007

• 1st prize: Qiang Cai (University of Iowa)
• 2nd prize:
  • David Wheeler (Ohio State University)
  • Youngho Kim (Ohio State University)

2006

• 1st prize: Jonathan Schroeder (University of Minnesota)
• 2nd prize: Noah Goldstein (University of California at Santa Barbara)
• 3rd prize: Soumya Mazumdar (University of Iowa)

2005

• 1st prize: Eun-Hye Yoo (University of California at Santa Barbara)
  
• 2nd prize:
  • Eric Delmelle (SUNY-Buffalo)
  • Richard Middelton (University of California at Santa Barbara)
• Winner for emerging scholar paper competition: Ikuho Yamada (IUPUI)

2004

2003

Winners
• Changjoo Kim (Ohio State University)
  "Infrastructure design and cost allocation in hub network."
• Nicholas Nagle (University of California at Santa Barbara)
  "A point-based regression analysis of industrial location."

2002

Winner: Kai Chi Leung (Clark University)
"Incorporation of spatial configuration in land allocation: a threshold approach."

2001

Winner: Sang-Il Lee (Ohio State University)
"Developing a bivariate spatial association measure: an extension of Moran's I."

2000

1999

The SG judges declined to award a prize in the student paper competition.
The emerging scholar prize was awarded to Qing Shen (MIT) for his paper entitled,
"An approach to representing the spatial structure of the information society."

1998

Winner: Peter Fellows (Syracuse University)

1997

Winners
• Pat Pellegrinil (Ohio State University, 1996 Ph.D. from SUNY/Buffalo)
• Michael Tiefeldorf (Ph.D. student, Wilfrid Laurier University)

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