Songhua Hu

Songhua Hu

CrowdSensing, Human Mobility, GeoAI, Network Science

Greetings! I’m Songhua Hu (胡松华), a Postdoctoral Researcher at MIT specializing in urban mobility sensing and computing. My work leverages big data and new computational methods to advance smart, sustainable, resilient, and equitable mobility systems.

My research specifically involves: 1) Collecting and fusing multi-structured mobility data collected from Mobile Phones, City Cameras, Connected Vehicles, and Social Media. 2) Simulating and forecasting large-scale human movement under both Recurrent and Non-Recurrent scenarios. 3) Modeling the interaction between Human Mobility and Urban Environment, Transport Network, Public Health, and Social Equity.

My theoretical foundation surrounds Deep learning, Statistics, Traffic Simulation, Network Science. Applications of my work span areas such as: Sustainable Mobility (Vehicle Emission Estimation, Vehicle Electrification, Mobility as a Service (MaaS)), Emergency Response(Network Resilience, Community Vulnerability), Transport and Health(Computational Epidemiology, Human Exposure, Health Disparity), Transportation Planning, Management, and Operation(Travel Demand Modelling, Transportation Economics, Travel Behavioral Analysis, Accessibility).

News

🔥🔥I will be joining the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering (ACE) at City University of Hong Kong as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Fall 2025. I currently have several fully funded Postdoc, Ph.D. student and research assistant positions available. Students with backgrounds in data science, computer science, operations research, transportation, geography, or related fields are welcome to apply. Experience with large language models (LLMs) is a plus. To apply, please send your CV, Transcript, and Research Statement to hsonghua@mit.edu.

我将于2025年秋季加入香港城市大学（世界排名：U.S. News 54, QS 63）ACE学院担任助理教授，目前有数名全奖博士生/博士后/研究助理名额。 欢迎数据科学、计算机、运筹学、交通、地理等相关背景的学生申请（有大模型经验加分）。 申请方式：请将CV+成绩单+研究计划（可选）发送至hsonghua@mit.edu.

  • [09/2025] I will be joining the CityUHK as a tenure-track Assistant Professor!
  • [05/2025] I gave a job talk at UCL CEGE on Agentic AI in Human Mobility Simulation!
  • [04/2025] I gave a guest lecture at USF on Big Data Mining in Urban Computing!
  • [02/2025] I gave a job talk at Princeton University ACEE on Scalable Estimation of Vehicle Emissions Using Ubiquitous Visual and Location Data!
  • …

Research Interests

Human Mobility | Sustainable Mobility | Mobility Resilience | Transport and Health | Miscellaneous (Transportation Economics, Public Perception, MaaS) …

Connecting the dots: Human mobility + X

Education

  • Ph.D., Civil & Environmental Engineering (Transportation), University of Maryland, College Park, 2023
  • M.S., Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, 2019
    • Thesis: “Promoting electric vehicle efficiency in large-scale carsharing systems”
  • B.S., Civil & Environmental Engineering (Transportation), Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), 2016
    • Thesis: “Simulation of pedestrian flow in metro systems: a dynamic floor-field cellular automata approach”

Publications

  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1 Paper).
  • Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice (4 Papers, 2 First-Author).
  • Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies (5 Papers, 3 First-Author).
  • Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment (3 Papers, 3 First-Author).
  • Journal of Transport Geography (2 Papers, 2 First-Author).
  • Sustainable Cities and Society (1 Paper, 1 First-Author).
  • Computers, Environment and Urban Systems (1 Paper).
  • IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine (1 Paper, 1 First-Author).
  • International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (1 Paper, 1 First-Author).
  • Journal of the Royal Society Interface (1 Paper).
  • Journal of Planning Education and Research (1 Paper).
  • Vaccine (2 Papers, 2 First-Author).
  • PLOS One (2 Papers, 1 First-Author).
  • Health & Place (1 Paper).
  • Case Studies on Transport Policy (1 Paper).
  • International Journal of Sustainable Transportation (1 Paper).
  • Transportation Research Record (2 Papers).
  • IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (2 Papers, 2 First-Author).
  • Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting (>20 Posters/Presentations).

See the full list here: Google Scholar

Awards

Reviews (Selected)

  • Journal Article Reviewer
    • Transportation: Accident Analysis and Prevention; Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering; IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems; Journal of Transport Geography; Transportation; Transportation Research Part A/B/C/D/E; Transport Policy; Travel Behavior and Society; Transportation Letters; Transportation Research Record; Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives.
    • Planning and GIS: Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society; Cities; Geo-spatial Information Science; International Journal of Geographical Information Science; Journal of Planning Education and Research; Journal of Urban Technology; Regional Studies; Sustainable Cities and Society; Socio-Economic Planning Sciences.
    • Multidisciplinary: Humanities & Social Sciences Communications; Information Fusion; The Lancet Regional Health; International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction; Nature Cities; Nature Communications; Scientific Reports; Technological Forecasting and Social Change; Telematics and Informatics; PLOS One.
  • Conference Proceeding Reviewer
    • TRB Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting; WWW International World Wide Web Conference; COTA International Conference of Transportation Professionals; IACP International Association of China Planning; IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Conference Management System

See the full list here: Web of Science