Dr. Hongmian Gong has been an Associate Professor of Geography at Hunter College of the City University of New York since 1998 and an Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York since 2003. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Georgia, M.A. in Urban Studies from the University of Akron, and B.S. and M.S. in Geography from Zhongshan University, China.

Dr. Hongmian Gong has done substantial research on using GPS, Web GIS, and mobile technologies for urban transportation studies. She accumulated considerable experience on GPS accuracy and urban canyon effect from a project of pilot testing the use of handheld GPS in the household travel survey in New York tri-state metro region. After the pilot-test, she and her team members explored the feasibility of a passive travel survey collection in a complex urban environment like New York City and published an article in Transportation Research Part A. They also post-processed data from two small GPS-based travel surveys for travel mode detection in New York City, the results of which is published in Computers, Environment and Urban Systems. To extend the GPS research further, Dr. Gong built a Web GIS for validation of GPS travel data and developed a smartphone app to transmit GPS data over the Internet to an cloud server for travel mode detection. The app is being tested by students at Queens College to provide carbon emission and calorie-burned information in relation to commuting mode choices. Dr. Gong is recently funded to integrate real-time GIS and social media to collect qualitative transportation data for trip purpose speculations and for responses to extreme events.

In addition to transportation, Dr. Gong is interested in research on urban advanced services (the financial services in New York City, in particular) and China. She serves in the Board of Directors in the Asian Urban Research Association and in the Association of American Geographers Urban Geography Specialty Group. Dr. Hongmian Gong is the author/coauthor of 33 publications including journal articles, book chapters, and research reports. She presented in 51 international, national, and regional conferences and organized three conference sessions. Last year, Dr. Gong established a research cluster team on GPS for Transportation at UTRC2 (http://www.geography.hunter.cuny.edu/~hgong/GPS/ClusterTeam.htm) and organized a GPS for Transportation Symposium in New York City (program and presentation videos available at http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/~hgong/GPS/Symposium.htm). To fund her research, Dr. Gong has obtained over $500K from various sources such as University Transportation Research Center, New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, and Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.