Assistant Professor Yiqun Xie Receives BSOS Early Career Impact Award

Award honors early-career faculty whose research addresses major societal challenges and creates meaningful public impact.

The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS) has named Assistant Professor Yiqun Xie as a recipient of the 2025 Early Career Impact Award. Xie, a faculty member in the Department of Geographical Sciences and an affiliate of the AI Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland, was recognized for his innovative research at the intersection of artificial intelligence and environmental science, and for his efforts to enhance the visibility and real-world application of his work.

Xie was nominated for the award by current and former Department Chairs Tatiana Loboda and Chris Justice. “Yiqun is an outstanding scientist, highly accomplished for an assistant professor and fully deserving of this BSOS career impact award,” said Justice. Loboda added, “Not only is Yiqun’s work important and novel on its own, it is boosting the research of others in the department, allowing us to explore new avenues for breakthrough science.”

The Early Career Impact Award honors professional track and tenure-track faculty within eight years of receiving their terminal degree whose research contributes to addressing society’s grand challenges and demonstrates significant public impact. Xie’s work exemplifies these qualities through the development of AI-driven tools that address pressing environmental and societal issues.

“It is a great honor to receive this award,” said Xie. “I am deeply grateful to Chris and Tatiana for their nomination, both of whom have served as department chairs since I joined and have consistently provided invaluable support. This award serves as a strong motivation for me to continue my commitment to advancing AI methods that address grand challenges and impactful problems.”

Since joining GEOG in 2020, Xie has focused on building interdisciplinary collaborations that integrate data science, remote sensing, and environmental research. His work has led to the development of DeepED, the first AI-enabled global forest dynamics model, which has significantly improved the efficiency and scale of forest ecosystem monitoring.

“Dr. Xie's work has already led to numerous advances of high impact including the first AI-enabled global forest dynamics model, DeepED,” said Professor George Hurtt, associate chair of the department. “This advance promises to accelerate relevant applications by orders of magnitude and enable new investigations that were previously computationally prohibitive. He is highly deserving of the Early Career Impact Award.”

Xie credited the collaborative environment within the University of Maryland for enabling his work.

“As an interdisciplinary researcher, the department offers me exciting and unique opportunities to build cross-discipline collaborations,” Xie said. “The expertise and insights from my collaborators and colleagues are essential for me and my team to create use-inspired AI models that are deeply integrated with the needs from science and applications. I am very thankful for the collaborative environment established by the department and the college. It also reminds me of the hard work of my students and the strong support from the staff members, which are important for the success of our research.”

2025 BSOS Faculty and Staff Awards

Images by George Hurtt, courtesy of Yiqun Xie

Published on Mon, 05/19/2025 - 16:37