Biography & Scholarship

Xiaogang (Marshall) Ma is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Idaho. He received his Ph.D. degree of Earth Systems Science and GIScience from University of Twente, Netherlands in 2011, and then completed postdoctoral training of Data Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His research focuses on deploying data science and AI to support cross-disciplinary collaboration and scientific discovery, with broad interests in complex systems in Earth and environmental sciences, data interoperability and provenance, and visualized exploratory analysis of Big and Small Data. He is active in international societies of data science and geoinformatics, including ACM SIGWEB, CODATA, ESIP, RDA, GSA, AGU and IAMG. Ma currently serves as Editor in Chief for the Elsevier journal Applied Computing and Geosciences and Associate Editor for Computers and Geosciences. He received GSA's M. Lee Allison Award of Geoinformatics and GSIS Annual Best Paper Award in 2024, the Science of Team Science (SciTS) Meritorious Contribution Award in 2018, the IAMG A.B. Vistelius Research Award in 2015, and the inaugural ICSU-WDS Data Stewardship Award in 2014.

Honors

Charles S. Falkenberg Award
American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2025
Best Paper Award
Geoscience Information Society (GSIS), 2024
M. Lee Allison Award of Geoinformatics
Geological Society of America (GSA), 2024
Presidential Mid-Career Award
University of Idaho (United States, Moscow) - UI, 2024
Excellence in Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Efforts Award
University of Idaho (United States, Moscow) - UI, 2023
Postdoctoral Mentoring Award
University of Idaho (United States, Moscow) - UI, 2023
SciTS Meritorious Contribution Award
Science of Team Science Conference, 2018
Andrei B. Vistelius Research Award
International Association for Mathematical Geosciences, 2015
Data Stewardship Award
International Council for Science World Data System, 2014

Organizational Affiliations

Associate Professor, Computer Science, College of Engineering, University of Idaho

Research Faculty, Institute for Health in the Human Ecosystem, Office of Research and Economic Development, University of Idaho

Member, Idaho Experimental Partnership to Stimulate Competitive Research, Office of Research and Economic Development, University of Idaho

Member, Initiative for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies, Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, Office of Research and Economic Development, University of Idaho

Participating Faculty, Institute for Modeling Collaboration and Innovation, Office of Research and Economic Development, University of Idaho

Education

Data Science
2012–2014, Sloan DCO Postdoctoral Fellow, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (United States, Troy) - RPI
Earth Systems Science and GIScience, ITC
2011, PhD, University of Twente
Geoinformatics Engineering
2009, DEng, China University of Geosciences, China
Land Resources Management
2002, BEng, China University of Geosciences, China