About | Kai Ren

Biography

Academic Background

I am a postdoctoral researcher at Nanjing Normal University. My work focuses on geospatial analysis, climate change and agriculture, spatial interpolation prediction of meteorological elements, GIS modeling and simulation, lake hydrodynamic numerical model simulation, and front-end/back-end GIS software systems.

I was a Research Associate at Curtin University from 2023.03 to 2025.03. I welcome collaborations on agricultural GIS, spatial prediction, climate impacts on production systems, and applied geospatial modeling.

Academic Gallery

Selected Group Photos with Leading Scholars

With Academician Deren Li in 2024 — With Academician Deren Li (2024)与李德仁院士（2024）

With Academician Jianya Gong in 2024 — With Academician Jianya Gong (2024)与龚健雅院士（2024）

With Academician Deren Li and Mrs. Li in 2024 — With Academician Deren Li and Mrs. Li (2024)与李德仁院士及夫人（2024）

With Academician Ruizhi Chen in 2024 — With Academician Ruizhi Chen (2024)与陈锐志院士（2024）

With Academicians Deren Li, Jianya Gong, and Ruizhi Chen in 2024 — With Academicians Deren Li, Jianya Gong, and Ruizhi Chen (2024)与李德仁院士、龚健雅院士、陈锐志院士（2024）

Dinner with academicians and professors in 2024 — Dinner with academicians and professors (2024)与各位院士和教授们的晚宴（2024）

With Associate Professor Yongze Song in 2025 — With A/Prof. Yongze Song (2025)与宋泳泽副教授（2025）

Appointments

2025 - Present

Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer, Nanjing Normal University

Geospatial analysis, climate change and agriculture, and applied GIScience research.

2023.03 - 2025.03

Research Associate, Curtin University

School of Design and the Built Environment; geospatial analysis and climate-agriculture research.

Education

Ph.D. Researcher, Northwest A&F University

Land Resources and Spatial Information Technology; spatial prediction and climate change research.

M.S. in Cartography and Geographic Information System, Nanjing Normal University

School of Geography; Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographic Environment, Ministry of Education.

B.S. in Geographic Information System, Northwest A&F University

Selected Publications

Ren, K.^*, Song, Y.^*, Yang, X., Wang, X., Chen, M., Yu, Q., 2026. Spatial outliers as a pattern determinant for explaining heterogeneity. International Journal of Geographical Information Science. DOI
Ren, K., Song, Y.^*, Yu, Q.^*, 2026. Second-dimension outliers for spatial prediction. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 40(6), 1915-1942. DOI
Ren, K., Song, Y.^*, Li, L., Mancini, F., Xiao, Z., Zhang, X., Qu, R., Yu, Q.^*, 2025. Identifying climate and environmental determinants of spatial disparities in wheat production using a geospatial machine learning model. GIScience & Remote Sensing, 62(1): 2533487. DOI
Yang, X., Song, Y., Yoo, C., Ren, K., Wu, P., 2025. Irregular anisotropy in surface urban heat island footprint. Sustainable Cities and Society, p.106779. DOI

Skills

ArcGIS, ERDAS, ENVI, R, Python, Java, C++, C#, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, Vue, Spring Boot, GIS modeling, remote sensing, geospatial machine learning, and software development.

Academic Activity

Experience and Awards

Experience

2025 Presented an oral report at IPC2025, Perth, Australia.
2025 Served as one of the Organising Committee members of the 11^th International Conference on Innovative Production and Construction (IPC2025).
2024 Conference staff for the ISPRS Technical Commission IV Symposium 2024, Fremantle, Perth, Australia.
2024 Served as one of the Organising Committee members of the 10^th International Conference on Innovative Production and Construction (IPC2024).
2023 Presented at the international conference City+2023@Perth in the session on spatial methods.
2023 Served as one of the organizers of the international academic conference City+2023@Perth, themed “Geospatial Big Data and Artificial Intelligence for Cities”.
2016 Served as the Deputy League Secretary of the class.
2015 Organized the Pastoral Envoy Team of Northwest A&F University and won the University-Level Excellent Award.
2015 Organized the National Science and Technology Innovation Project “Numerical Simulation and Mechanism Research of Loess Slope Cultivated Land Microtopography” and won the Excellence Award.
2014 Organized the “Three Visits to the Countryside” investigation service at the Ansai Comprehensive Test Station of Soil and Water Conservation and won the University-Level Excellent Award.

Awards

2022 Provincial-Level Bronze Award, the 11^th “Challenger Cup” Shaanxi University Student Entrepreneurship Plan Competition.
2022 Silver Award in the final of the 10^th Challenge Cup College Student Entrepreneurship Plan Competition of Northwest A&F University.
2021 First-Class Scholarship, Northwest A&F University.
2019 Outstanding Graduate, Nanjing Normal University.
2018 Excellent Postgraduate of Nanjing Normal University (four times: 2017 University-Level / 2017 College-Level / 2018 University-Level / 2018 College-Level).
2018 Excellent League Member of Nanjing Normal University (two times: 2017 University-Level / 2018 University-Level).
2016 First-Class Scholarship of Nanjing Normal University (two times).
2016 Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis, Northwest A&F University.
2014 Excellent League Member, Northwest A&F University.
2014 Social Practice Model, Northwest A&F University.