Biography & Scholarship

Xiaogang (Marshall) Ma is a professor of computer science at the University of Idaho. He received his Ph.D. degree from University of Twente, Netherlands and completed postdoctoral training of data science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His research focuses on applying data science and AI to support cross-disciplinary scientific discovery, with broad interests in complex system modeling, data interoperability and provenance, and knowledge-infused data exploration. He is active in international societies of data science and geoinformatics, including ACM, CODATA, ESIP, RDA, GSA, AGU and IAMG. Ma currently serves as co-Editor-in-Chief for the Elsevier journal Applied Computing and Geosciences. He received AGU's Charles S. Falkenberg Award in 2025, GSA's M. Lee Allison Award and GSIS' Best Paper Award both in 2024, and IAMG's Andrei B. Vistelius Award in 2015. His achievement was also recognized by several university and college awards at UofI.

Links

Honors

Charles S. Falkenberg Award
American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2025
M. Lee Allison Award of Geoinformatics
Geological Society of America (GSA), 2024
Presidential Mid-Career Award
University of Idaho, 2024
Best Paper Award
Geoscience Information Society (GSIS), 2024
Excellence in Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Efforts Award
University of Idaho, 2023
Postdoctoral Mentoring Award
University of Idaho, 2023
College of Engineering Dean's Distinguished Fellow
University of Idaho, 2022
College of Engineering Outstanding Early-Career Faculty Award
University of Idaho, 2021
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

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

Affiliate Faculty, Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences, Office of Research and Economic Development, University of Idaho

Affiliate Faculty, Earth and Spatial Sciences, College of Science, University of Idaho

Visiting Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Visiting Professor, Carnegie Institution for Science

Education

Data Science
2012–2014, Sloan DCO Postdoctoral Fellow, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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