PhD Candidate · HKUST(GZ)

MinweiZhao

I work with cities, spatial data, and machine intelligence.

Urban researcher · Based in Guangzhou and Hong Kong
Minwei Zhao in a snowy mountain landscape

Hello, I’m Minwei.

I am a PhD candidate in the Urban Governance and Design Thrust at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), and a member of the Urban Morphology Studio. I was trained in surveying and mapping at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications and in remote sensing and GIS at University College London.

My research spans GIScience, GeoAI, computer vision, graph machine learning, and urban studies. I am especially interested in how computational methods change the ways we observe, evaluate, and explain cities—and how those choices shape evidence about urban health and inequality.

Questions I keep returning to.

My work moves between methodological research and applied urban questions. Current interests include:

  • 01

    Urban imagery and visual intelligence, including street-view imagery and computer vision

  • 02

    Graph representation learning for spatial and relational urban data

  • 03

    Urban health, mobility, morphology, and public space

  • 04

    Spatial inequality, gated communities, urban boundaries, and equity

  • 05

    Geographic evaluation, generalization, and interpretable machine learning

  • 06

    Federated and ownership-aware learning for fragmented urban data

Publications & conference work

A complete current list is also available on my Google Scholar profile.

01
2026ECCV

Urban Boundaries, Social Barriers: A Benchmark and Vision-Centric Framework for Mapping Gated Communities and Equity Implications

Minwei Zhao, Weiming Zhang, Jiawang Du, Qiming Liu, Weiming Zhuang, Pei Nie, Cai Wu

Computer Vision — ECCV 2026, LNCS 17051, pp. 414–432. Published 10 September 2026.

Open preprint · Equal contribution: Minwei Zhao and Weiming Zhang

PDF ↗DOI ↗Springer ↗Code & data ↗
BibTeX
@inproceedings{zhao2026urbanboundaries,
  author    = {Zhao, Minwei and Zhang, Weiming and Du, Jiawang and Liu, Qiming and Zhuang, Weiming and Nie, Pei and Wu, Cai},
  title     = {Urban Boundaries, Social Barriers: A Benchmark and Vision-Centric Framework for Mapping Gated Communities and Equity Implications},
  booktitle = {Computer Vision -- ECCV 2026},
  series    = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
  volume    = {17051},
  pages     = {414--432},
  publisher = {Springer},
  doi       = {10.1007/978-3-032-37356-4_23},
  url       = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-37356-4_23},
  year      = {2026}
}
02
2026Building and Environment

Street space as health infrastructure: diagnosing uneven street support for exercise through the spatial triad

Minwei Zhao, Guosheng Yang, Zhuoni Zhang, Filip Biljecki, Hanzhi Zu, Cai Wu

Building and Environment, 304: 115095.

Accepted manuscript · Open access

PDF ↗DOI ↗Publication page ↗
BibTeX
@article{zhao2026streetspace,
  author  = {Zhao, Minwei and Yang, Guosheng and Zhang, Zhuoni and Biljecki, Filip and Zu, Hanzhi and Wu, Cai},
  title   = {Street space as health infrastructure: diagnosing uneven street support for exercise through the spatial triad},
  journal = {Building and Environment},
  volume  = {304},
  pages   = {115095},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.115095},
  year    = {2026}
}
03
2026CEUS

UST-GNN: A unified spatial–topological graph neural network framework for urban analytics demonstrated through a case study on urban health prediction

Minwei Zhao, Sanja Šćepanović, Stephen Law, Ivica Obadić, Cai Wu, Daniele Quercia

Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 129: 102466.

Open access

PDF ↗DOI ↗arXiv ↗
BibTeX
@article{zhao2026ustgnn,
  author  = {Zhao, Minwei and Šćepanović, Sanja and Law, Stephen and Obadić, Ivica and Wu, Cai and Quercia, Daniele},
  title   = {UST-GNN: A unified spatial--topological graph neural network framework for urban analytics demonstrated through a case study on urban health prediction},
  journal = {Computers, Environment and Urban Systems},
  volume  = {129},
  pages   = {102466},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2026.102466},
  year    = {2026}
}
04
2026SCS

Theory-informed and interpretable graph learning for urban commuting flows

Minwei Zhao, Dailuo Zhang, Zhecheng Shi, Cai Wu

Sustainable Cities and Society, 148: 107575.

Author copy

PDF ↗DOI ↗
BibTeX
@article{zhao2026theoryinformed,
  author  = {Zhao, Minwei and Zhang, Dailuo and Shi, Zhecheng and Wu, Cai},
  title   = {Theory-informed and interpretable graph learning for urban commuting flows},
  journal = {Sustainable Cities and Society},
  volume  = {148},
  pages   = {107575},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.scs.2026.107575},
  year    = {2026}
}
05
2026Cities

Beyond single snapshots: Quantifying multi-scale heterogeneity from street-view imagery and what it reveals about perception

Guosheng Yang, Yunlei Su, Minwei Zhao, Chaosu Li, Cai Wu

Cities, 175: 107227.

Article ↗DOI ↗ResearchGate ↗
BibTeX
@article{yang2026beyondsnapshots,
  author  = {Yang, Guosheng and Su, Yunlei and Zhao, Minwei and Li, Chaosu and Wu, Cai},
  title   = {Beyond single snapshots: Quantifying multi-scale heterogeneity from street-view imagery and what it reveals about perception},
  journal = {Cities},
  volume  = {175},
  pages   = {107227},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.cities.2026.107227},
  year    = {2026}
}
06
2026arXiv

Tarot-SAM3: Training-free SAM3 for Any Referring Expression Segmentation

Weiming Zhang, Dingwen Xiao, Songyue Guo, Guangyu Xiang, Shiqi Wen, Minwei Zhao, Lei Chen, Lin Wang

arXiv:2604.07916. Withdrawn preprint.

Withdrawn on 4 August 2026 for revision. The original v1 is available for reference.

Original PDF (v1) ↗DOI ↗arXiv ↗
BibTeX
@article{zhang2026tarotsam3,
  author  = {Zhang, Weiming and Xiao, Dingwen and Guo, Songyue and Xiang, Guangyu and Wen, Shiqi and Zhao, Minwei and Chen, Lei and Wang, Lin},
  title   = {Tarot-SAM3: Training-free SAM3 for Any Referring Expression Segmentation},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.07916},
  doi     = {10.48550/arXiv.2604.07916},
  note    = {Withdrawn on 4 August 2026; original version v1 remains available},
  year    = {2026}
}
07
2025CUPUM

GravityGNN: A Novel Graph Neural Network for Modelling Home-to-Work Spatial Flows in England

Minwei Zhao, Cai Wu

19th International Conference on Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management, London. Paper 155.

Best Early Career Paper Award · Proceedings link refers to the conference collection.

Request a copy ↗Conference proceedings ↗
BibTeX
@inproceedings{zhao2025gravitygnn,
  author    = {Zhao, Minwei and Wu, Cai},
  title     = {GravityGNN: A Novel Graph Neural Network for Modelling Home-to-Work Spatial Flows in England},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management},
  note      = {Best Early Career Paper Award; Paper 155},
  year      = {2025}
}
08
2025SCS

Perceiving the fine-scale urban poverty using street view images through a vision-language model

Chao Wu, Yongxiang Liang, Minwei Zhao, Mingda Teng, Han Yue, Yu Ye

Sustainable Cities and Society, 123: 106267.

Article ↗DOI ↗ResearchGate ↗
BibTeX
@article{wu2025urbanpoverty,
  author  = {Wu, Chao and Liang, Yongxiang and Zhao, Minwei and Teng, Mingda and Yue, Han and Ye, Yu},
  title   = {Perceiving the fine-scale urban poverty using street view images through a vision-language model},
  journal = {Sustainable Cities and Society},
  volume  = {123},
  pages   = {106267},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.scs.2025.106267},
  year    = {2025}
}
09
2023EPB

Measuring urban nighttime vitality and its relationship with urban spatial structure: A data-driven approach

Chao Wu, Minwei Zhao, Yu Ye

Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 50(1): 130–145.

Article ↗DOI ↗ResearchGate ↗
BibTeX
@article{wu2023nighttimevitality,
  author  = {Wu, Chao and Zhao, Minwei and Ye, Yu},
  title   = {Measuring urban nighttime vitality and its relationship with urban spatial structure: A data-driven approach},
  journal = {Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science},
  volume  = {50},
  number  = {1},
  pages   = {130--145},
  doi     = {10.1177/23998083221108191},
  year    = {2023}
}

Education & supervision

Each stage is shown together with the people and institutions that shaped the work.

2026AI for Society Poster Award
2026ECCV published paper
2025 · CUPUMBest Early Career Paper Award

Students & peers

Fellow students and alumni I have worked with on research papers.

Weiming Zhang

PhD candidate

HKUST(GZ)

Gated community mapping · Referring expression segmentation

Jiawang Du

PhD student

HKUST(GZ) · Urban Morphology Studio

Gated community mapping

Qiming Liu

PhD student / visiting collaborator

Renmin University of China · HKUST(GZ)

Gated community mapping

Guosheng Yang

Research postgraduate

HKUST(GZ) · Urban Morphology Studio

Urban exercise support · Street-view perception

Hanzhi Zu

UMS alumnus

HKUST(GZ) · Urban Morphology Studio

Urban exercise support

Dailuo Zhang

PhD student

HKUST(GZ) · Urban Morphology Studio

Graph learning for commuting flows

Zhecheng Shi

UMS alumnus

Urban Morphology Studio · Northeastern University (2026)

Graph learning for commuting flows

Yunlei Su

PhD student

HKUST(GZ) · Urban Morphology Studio

Street-view perception

Dingwen Xiao

PhD student

HKUST(GZ)

Referring expression segmentation

Songyue Guo

PhD student

HKUST(GZ) · Data Science and Analytics

Referring expression segmentation

Guangyu Xiang

PhD student

HKUST(GZ) · Data Science and Analytics

Referring expression segmentation

Shiqi Wen

PhD student

HKUST(GZ)

Referring expression segmentation