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Phone : 614-292-9465 | Fax : 614-292-6213 | Email: kwan.8@osu.edu
My research addresses questions in urban, transportation, health, and economic geography through the application of GIS methods. I focus mainly on the geographical and temporal characteristics of people's daily activities, and the impact of recent social, economic and political changes on their everyday lives as manifested through changes in the geographies of their daily activities. I am also interested in the development of new analytical methods for geographical research - especially GIS-based 3D geovisualization and geocomputation.
My studies often rely on the primary data I collected through activity diary surveys and in-depth interviews. Part of my current research attempts to integrate GIS and qualitative methods; while my substantive concerns have expanded to include other topics, such as the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on people's everyday lives and geographies of health. My research interests include:
My research interests are quite diverse, but several overarching dimensions can be identified: (a) an emphasis on people’s everyday experiences; (b) a focus on individual differences across multiple axes (e.g. gender, race and religion); (c) a recognition of the need to develop new methods for representing the complexities of human behavior and the urban environment; and (d) a concern for the social and policy implications of various issues.
"Spatial Patterns of Social Isolation, Youthful Marijuana Use, and Sexual/HIV Risk." National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health ($700,000), 08/2009-07/2011. (Co-PI)
"Dynamics of Space and Time Use: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences for Crime and Problem Behaviors." National Science Foundation, Human and Social Dynamics Program (SBE-0729466, $700,000), 01/2008-12/2010. ( Co-PI)
"Smokeless Tobacco Marketing Approaches to Ohio Appalachian Populations." National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health ($360,000), 07/2008-06/2010. (Co-PI)
"Segregation and Local Crime: An Integrated Spatial Analysis." National Science Foundation, Sociology and Law and Social Science Programs (SES-0528232, $250,000), 10/2005-9/2007. (Co-PI)
"SPACE - Spatial Perspectives for Analysis in Curriculum Enhancement." National Science Foundation, CCLI National Dissemination Program (DUE-0231263, $1.4 million), 10/2003-9/2006. (PI for OSU)
"The Cultural Politics of Homeland Security: Negotiating Muslim Identities After September 11." Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Ohio State University ($54,000), 7/2003-6/2004.
"Homeland Security and the Urban Geography of Hate and Fear after 9/11: A Study on the Impact of 9/11 on the Muslim Population of Columbus, Ohio." Center for Urban and Regional Analysis (CURA), Ohio State University ($30,000), 5/2002-6/2003.
"The Impact of Internet Use on Women's Activity Patterns and the Gender Division of Household Labor." National Science Foundation, Information Technology Research (NSF-ITR) Program (BCS-0112488, $200,000), 10/2001-9/2003. (PI)
2009. The International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Methods Section). Mei-Po Kwan and Sara McLafferty (Eds), Amsterdam: Elsevier.
2009. Critical Quantitative Geographies. Mei-Po Kwan and Tim Schwanen (Eds), special issue of Environment and Planning A, Vol.41.
2009. Critical Quantitative Geographies 1: Beyond the Critical/Analytical Binary. Mei-Po Kwan and Tim Schwanen (Eds), special issue of The Professional Geographer, Vol.61, No.3.
2009. Critical Quantitative Geographies 2: Practical Engagements. Tim Schwanen and Mei-Po Kwan (Eds), special issue of The Professional Geographer, Vol.61, No.4.
2009. ICT, Everyday Life and Urban Change. Martin Dijst, Tim Schwanen, and Mei-Po Kwan (Eds), special issue of Environment and Planning B, Vol.36.
2008. Transport: Critical Essays in Human Geography. Susan Hanson and Mei-Po Kwan (Eds), Aldershot: Ashgate.
2008. ICTs and the Decoupling of Everyday Activities, Space and Time. Tim Schwanen, Martin Dijst and Mei-Po Kwan (Eds), special issue of Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Vol.99, No.5.
2007. Geographies of Muslim Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging. Cara Aitchison, Peter Hopkins and Mei-Po Kwan (Eds), Aldershot: Ashgate.
2007. The Interaction between ICT and Human Activity-Travel Behavior. Mei-Po Kwan, Martin Dijst and Tim Schwanen (Eds), special issue of Transportation Research A, Vol.41, No.2.
2006. Qualitative Research and GIS. Mei-Po Kwan and LaDona Knigge (Eds), special issue of Environment and Planning A, Vol.38, No.11.
2006. The Internet, Changing Mobilities and Urban Dynamics., Tim Schwanen, Martin Dijst and Mei-Po Kwan (Eds), special issue of Urban Geography, Vol.27, No.7.
2005. Critical GIS. Francis Harvey, Mei-Po Kwan and Marianna Pavlovskaya (Eds), special issue of Cartographica, Vol.40, No.4.
2004. Addressing the Social Implications of GIS in the Technical Realm: Public Health Data and GIS. Mei-Po Kwan and Nadine Schuurman (Eds), special issue of Cartographica, Vol.39, No.2.
2004. GIS and Social Science: New Rules of Engagement. Nadine Schuurman and Mei-Po Kwan (Eds), special issue of Cartographica, Vol.39, No.1.
2003. Accessbility in Space and Time: A Theme in Spatially Integrated Social Science. Mei-Po Kwan, Donald Janelle and Michael Goodchild (Eds), special issue of Journal of Geographical Systems, Vol.5, No.1.
2002. Feminist Geography and GIS. Special issue of Gender, Place and Culture, Vol.9, No.3.
2009. From place-based to people-based exposure measures. Social Science and Medicine, forthcoming. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. Three recent developments in critical GIS. Cartographica, 44(1): 11-12. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. Quantitative revolution 2: The critical (re)turn. The Professional Geographer, 61(3): 283-291. (Mei-Po Kwan and Tim Schwanen)
2009. ‘Doing’ critical geographies with numbers. The Professional Geographer, forthcoming. (Tim Schwanen and Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. Metropolitan area job accessibility and the working poor: Exploring local spatial variations of geographic context. Urban Geography, forthcoming. (E. Eric Boschmann and Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. The neoliberal straitjacket and public education in the U.S.: Understanding contemporary education reform and its implication for urban contexts. Urban Geography, forthcoming. (Suzanna Klaf and Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. The impact of the Internet on human activity-travel patterns: Analysis of gender differences using multi-group structural equation models. Journal of Transport Geography, forthcoming. (Fang Ren and Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. Decomposing, transforming and contextualizing E-shopping. Environment and Planning B, 36: 195-203. (Martin Dijst, Tim Schwanen and Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. The impact of geographic context on e-shopping behavior. Environment and Planning B, 36: 262-273. (Fang Ren and Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. Quantification. In The Handbook of Social Geographies, 573-585. Susan J. Smith, Rachel Pain, Sallie A. Marston, and John Paul Jones III (eds.). London: Sage. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. GIS as qualitative research: Knowledge, participatory politics, and cartographies of affect. In The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Methods in Human Geography, eds. Dydia DeLyser, Stuart Aitken, Mike Crang, Steve Herbert and Linda McDowell. London: Sage. (Stuart Aitken and Mei-Po Kwan)
2009. Space-time paths. In Manual of Geographic Information Systems, 427-442. Marguerite Madden (ed.), Bethesda, MD: American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2008. Geo-Narrative: Extending geographic information systems for narrative analysis in qualitative and mixed-method research. The Professional Geographer, 60(4): 443-465. (Mei-Po Kwan and Guoxiang Ding).[Abstract]
2008. From oral histories to visual narratives: Re-presenting the post-September 11 experiences of the Muslim women in the United States. Social and Cultural Geography, 9(6): 653-669. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract]
2008. How fixed is fixed? Gendered rigidity of space-time constraints and geographies of everyday activities. Geoforum, 39(6): 2109-2121. (Tim Schwanen, Mei-Po Kwan, and Fang Ren)
2008. ICTs and the decoupling of everyday activities, space and time. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 99(5): 519-527. (Tim Schwanen, Martin Dijst, and Mei-Po Kwan)
2008. Scale and accessibility: Implications for the analysis of land use-travel interaction. Applied Geography, 28: 110-123. (Mei-Po Kwan and Joe Weber) [Abstract]
2008. Mapping ambivalence: Exploring the geographies of community change and rails-to-trails development using photo-based Q-method and PPGIS. Geoforum, 39: 1058-1078. (Tim Hawthorne, John Krygier and Mei-Po Kwan)
2008. The Internet, mobile phone and space-time constraints. Geoforum, 39: 1362-1377. (Tim Schwanen and Mei-Po Kwan)
2008. Towards socially sustainable urban transportation: Progress and potential. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 2: 138-157. (E. Eric Boschmann and Mei-Po Kwan)
2008. Reconceptualizing sociogeographical context for the study of drug use, abuse, and addiction. In Geography and Drug Addiction, 445-454. Yonette Thomas, Douglas Richardson and Ivan Cheung (eds). Berlin: Springer. (Mei-Po Kwan, Ruth Peterson, Christopher Browning, Lori Burrington, Catherine Calder, and Lauren Krivo)
2008. Accessibility, e-shopping, and activity-travel patterns. In Transportation and Management Science, 707-716. H. P. Lo, Stephen C. H. Leung, and Susanna M. L. Tam (eds), Hong Kong: Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies. (Mei-Po Kwan and Fang Ren)
2008. Analysis of human space-time behavior: Geovisualization and geocomputational approaches. In Understanding Dynamics of Geographic Domains, 93-113. Kathleen S. Hornsby and May Yuan (eds). New York: CRC Press. (Mei-Po Kwan and Fang Ren)
2008. Introduction. In Transport: Critical Essays in Human Geography, eds. Susan Hanson and Mei-Po Kwan. Aldershot: Ashgate. (Susan Hanson and Mei-Po Kwan)
2008. Feminist perspectives on geographic information systems: Implications for geographic research. In Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering, 97-108, ed. Londa Schiebinger. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2008. Critical GIS. In Encyclopedia of Geographic Information Science, ed. Karen Kemp. London: Sage. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2008. Analysis of human space-time behavior: Geovisualization and geocomputational approaches. In Understanding Dynamics of Geographic Domains, 93-113. Kathleen S. Hornsby and May Yuan (eds). New York: CRC Press. (Mei-Po Kwan and Fang Ren)
2008. Emergent methods in feminist geography. In Handbook of Emergent Methods, 613-624. Sharlene N. Hesse-Biber and Patricia Leavy (eds). New York: Guilford. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2007. Mobile communications, social networks, and urban travel: Hypertext as a new metaphor for conceptualizing spatial interaction. The Professional Geographer, 59(4): 434-446. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract]
2007. Geovisualization of human hybrid activity-travel patterns. Transactions in GIS, 11(5): 721-744. (Fang Ren and Mei-Po Kwan) [Figures]
2007. The impact of real-time information on choices during the commute trip: Evidence from a travel simulator. Growth and Change, 38(4): 523-543. (Irene Casas and Mei-Po Kwan)
2007. Affecting geospatial technologies: Toward a feminist politics of emotion. The Professional Geographer, 59(1): 22-34. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figures]
2007. The interaction between ICT and human activity-travel behavior. Transportation Research A, 41(2): 121-124. (Mei-Po Kwan, Martin Dijst and Tim Schwanen)
2007. Introduction: Geographies of Muslim identities. In Geographies of Muslim Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging, 1-9. Cara Aitchison, Peter Hopkins and Mei-Po Kwan (eds). Aldershot: Ashgate. (Peter E. Hopkins, Mei-Po Kwan and Cara Aitchison)
2007. Hybrid GIS and cultural economic geography. In Politics and Practice in Economic Geography, 165-175, eds. Adam Tickell, Eric Sheppard, Jamie Peck and Trevor Barnes. London: Sage. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2006. Doing qualitative research using GIS: An oxymoronic endeavor? Environment and Planning A, 38(11): 1999-2002. (Mei-Po Kwan and LaDona Knigge)
2006. Transport geography in the age of mobile communications. Journal of Transport Geography, 14: 384-385. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2006. The Internet, changing mobilities and urban dynamics. Urban Geography, 27(7): 585-589. (Tim Schwanen, Martin Dijst and Mei-Po Kwan)
2006. GABRIEL: GIS activity-based travel simulator: Activity scheduling in the presence of real-time information. Geoinformatica, 10:469-493. (Mei-Po Kwan and Irene Casas)
2006. Geospatial ontology development and semantic analytics. Transactions in GIS, 10(4): 551-575. (I. Budak Arpinar, Amit Sheth, Cartic Ramakrishnan, Lynn Usery, Molly Azami and Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract]
2006. Conceptualizing socially sustainable urban rransport. In Sustainable Transportation. S.C. Wong, T.D. Hau, J.J. Wang, K.W. Chau, and H.W. Ho (eds.) Hung Hom, Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies. (E. Eric Boschmann and Mei-Po Kwan)
2005. A combinatorial data model for representing topological relations among 3D geographic features in micro-spatial environment. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 19(19): 1039-1056. (Jiyeong Lee and Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract]
2005. Emergency response after 9/11: The potential of real-time 3D GIS for quick emergency response in micro-spatial environments. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 29(2): 93-113.. (Mei-Po Kwan and Jiyeong Lee) [Abstract]
2005. Critical GIS. Cartographica, 40(4): 1-4. (Francis Harvey, Mei-Po Kwan and Marianna Pavlovskaya)
2005. Measuring activity and action space/time: Are our methods keeping pace with evolving behaviour patterns? In Integrated Land-Use and Transportation Models: Behavioural Foundations, 101-132, eds. Martin E.H. Lee-Gosselin and Sean T. Doherty. Oxford: Pergamon-Elsevier. (Talia M. McCray, Martin E.H. Lee-Gosselin and Mei-Po Kwan)
2005. Accessibility and the quality of life: Time-geographic perspectives. In Social Dimensions of Sustainable Transport: Transatlantic Perspectives, 109-126, eds. Kieran Donaghy, Georg Rudinger and Stefan Poppelreuter. Aldershot: Ashgate. (Martin Dijst and Mei-Po Kwan)
2004. Beyond difference: From canonical geography to hybrid geographies. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 94(4): 756-763. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2004. GIS methods in time-geographic research: Geocomputation and geovisualization of human activity patterns. Geografiska Annaler B, 86(4): 205-218. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract]
2004. Protection of geoprivacy and accuracy of spatial information: How effective are geographical masks? Cartographica, 39(2):15-28. (Mei-Po Kwan, Irene Casas and Ben C. Schmitz) [Abstract]
2004. Issues of privacy protection and analysis of public health data. Cartographica, 39(2):1-4. (Mei-Po Kwan and Nadine Schuurman)
2004. Taking a walk on the social side of GIS. Cartographica, 39(1):1-3. (Nadine Schuurman and Mei-Po Kwan)
2004. Geovisualization of human activity patterns using 3D GIS: A time-geographic approach. In Spatially Integrated Social Science, 48-66, eds. Michael F. Goodchild and Donald G. Janelle. New York: Oxford University Press. (Mei-Po Kwan and Jiyeong Lee) [Abstract] [Figures]
2004. 'Real' bodies, 'real' technologies. In Geography and Technology, 383-399, eds. Stanley D. Brunn, Susan L. Cutter and James W. Harrington. Norwell, MA: Kluwer. (Pamela Moss and Mei-Po Kwan)
2003. Gender troubles in the Internet era. Feminist Media Studies, 3(3): 371-374. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2003. Individual accessibility revisited: Implications for geographical analysis in the twenty-first Century. Geographical Analysis, 35(4):341-353. (Mei-Po Kwan and Joe Weber) [Abstract]
2003. Accessibility in space and time: A theme in spatially integrated social science. Journal of Geographical Systems, 5(1):1-3. (Mei-Po Kwan, Donald G. Janelle and Michael F. Goodchild)
2003. Recent advances in accessibility research: Representation, methodology and applications. Journal of Geographical Systems, 5(1):129-138. (Mei-Po Kwan, Alan T. Murray, Morton O’Kelly and Michael Tiefelsdorf) [Abstract]
2003. Evaluating the effects of geographic contexts on individual accessibility: A multilevel approach. Urban Geography, 24(8):647-671. (Joe Weber and Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract]
2003. Space-time accessibility measures: A geocomputational algorithm with a focus on the feasible opportunity set and possible activity duration. Journal of Geographical Systems, 5(1): 71-91. (Hyun-Mi Kim and Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figures]
2003. Intelligent emergency response systems. In The Geographical Dimensions of Terrorism, 111-116, Susan L. Cutter, Douglas B. Richardson and Thomas J. Wilbanks (eds). New York: Routledge. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2002. Feminist visualization: Re-envisioning GIS as a method in feminist geographic research. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 92(4):645-661. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figures]
Reprinted in Emergent Methods in Social Research, eds. Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber and Patricia Leavy. 2006. London: Sage.
2002. Time, information technologies and the geographies of everyday life. Urban Geography, 23(5):471-482. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2002. Is GIS for women: Reflections on the critical discourse in the 1990s. Gender, Place and Culture, 9(3):271-279. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2002. Feminist geography and GIS. Gender, Place and Culture, 9(3):261-262. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2002. Bringing time back In: A study on the influence of travel time variations and facility opening hours on individual accessibility. The Professional Geographer, 54(2):226-240. (Joe Weber and Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figures]
2002. Quantitative methods and feminist geographic research. In Feminist Geography in Practice: Research and Methods, 160-173, ed. Pamela Moss. Oxford: Blackwell. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2001. Cyberspatial cognition and individual access to information: The behavioral foundation of cybergeography. Environment and Planning B, 28(1):21-37. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figure]
2000. Interactive geovisualization of activity-travel patterns using three-dimensional geographical information systems: A methodological exploration with a large data set. Transportation Research C, 8:185-203. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figures]
2000. Gender differences in space-time constraints. Area, 32(2):145-156. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract]
2000. Analysis of human spatial behavior in a GIS environment: Recent developments and future prospects. Journal of Geographical Systems, 2(1):85-90. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract]
2000. Distributed database design for mobile geographical applications. Journal of Database Management, 11(1):3-17. (Manhoi Choy, Mei-Po Kwan and Hong Va Leong). [Abstract]
2000. Interactive geovisualization of activity-travel patterns using 3D GIS. In Geographic Information Systems in Transportation Research, ed. Jean-Claude Thill. New York: Pergamon. (Mei-Po Kwan)
2000. Human extensibility and individual hybrid-accessibility in space-time: A multi-scale representation using GIS. In Information, Place, and Cyberspace: Issues in Accessibility, 241-256, ed. Donald Janelle and David Hodge. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figures]
1999. Gender, the home-work link, and space-time patterns of non-employment activities. Economic Geography, 75(4):370-394. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figures]
1999. Gender and individual access to urban opportunities: A study using space-time measures. The Professional Geographer, 51(2):210-227. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figures]
1998. Space-time and integral measures of individual accessibility: A comparative analysis using a point-based framework. Geographical Analysis, 30(3):191-216. (Mei-Po Kwan) [Abstract] [Figures]
1998. Network-based constraints-oriented choice set formation using GIS. Geographical Systems, 5:139-162. (Mei-Po Kwan and Xiao-Dong Hong) [Abstract]
1998. Information representation for driver decision support systems. In Theoretical Foundations of Travel Choice Modelling, 281-303, eds. Tommy Garling, Thomas Laitila and Kerstin Westin. New York: Pergamon. (Mei-Po Kwan, Reginald G. Golledge and Jon Speigle)
1997. GISICAS: An activity-based travel decision support system using a GIS-interfaced computational-process model. In Activity-Based Approaches To Travel Analysis, 263-282, edited by Dick F. Ettema and Harry J.P. Timmermans. New York: Pergamon. (Mei-Po Kwan)
1997. Computational process modelling of disaggregate travel behaviour. In Recent Developments in Spatial Analysis: Spatial Statistics, Behavioural Modelling and Neurocomputing, 171-185, edited by Manfred M. Fischer and Arthur Getis. Springer-Verlag: Berlin. (Mei-Po Kwan and Reginald G. Golledge)
Top .
Professional Service .
Honors and Awards .
Teaching .
Research Interests .
Funded Projects
Publications .
Presentations .
Technical Reports .
Students .
Geography Department Homepage
| 3D GIS Gallery . Links to Figures |
Last Updated on August 2, 2009 by Mei-Po Kwan.