I develop accountable urban AI systems that connect foundation models,
multimodal sensing, spatiotemporal prediction, infrastructure resilience,
and planning decision support.
Urban Spatial IntelligenceFoundation Models For Sensing, Resilience, And Planning
HGMM
MorphNet
GROVE
PRISM
POLIS
SAGE
Research Profile
Current Research
I develop accountable urban AI systems for public decision-making. My
work explores transportation, urban climate, urban forestry, land-use
planning, and human-centered interaction through a shared core:
urban AI intelligence built on foundation models, multimodal sensing,
spatiotemporal prediction, infrastructure resilience, and planning
decision support.
Future Direction
My work centers on urban spatial intelligence: how urban actors behave
across space and time. I develop frontier AI methods, including world
models and geospatial foundation models, to reveal generalizable laws
of urban science and build rigorous, theory-driven urban AI.
Research Architecture
My research is organized around a central question: how can urban AI
systems become auditable, interpretable, and useful for public
institutions?
J. Tong, J. Moraros, S. Wang, G. Wang, S. Li, R. Liao. AAAI 2026, AI for Environmental Science, CCF-A.
GROVE
PRISM: Interpretable Natural Language-Driven Traffic Analysis Through Semantic-Spatiotemporal Reasoning.
J. Tong, S. Wang, G. Wang, Y. Wang, R. Liao, L. Guo, H. Choi, J. Moraros. AAAI 2026, AI for Urban Planning, CCF-A.
PRISM
SceneTrust: Real-Time Confidence-Aware Scene Rendering for Transparent Autonomous Vehicle Decision Visualization in VR.
J. Tong, T. Manatibieke, Y. Zhao, S. Wang, J. Moraros. ACM SIGGRAPH 2026, Technical Papers, CCF-A.
SceneTrust
Tessera: Participation as Cultural Reconstruction Through Confidence-Aware Temporal Rendering.
J. Tong, X. Zhang, Y. Zhao, S. Wang, J. Moraros. ACM SIGGRAPH 2026, CCF-A.
Tessera
Beyond Aspiration: A Knowledge-Grounded Decision-Support System for Auditable Urban Forestry Governance toward Climate Neutrality.
J. Tong, S. Wang, S. Li, T. Manatibieke, Z. Chen, J. Moraros. Under review at Cities.
GROVE
From Black-Box Prediction to Accountable System: Natural Language-Driven Explainable AI for Emergency Traffic Management.
J. Tong, S. Wang, G. Wang, Y. Wang, R. Liao, T. Manatibieke, J. Moraros. Under review at IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Emergency Traffic XAI
Addressing Spatial Indistinguishability in Spatiotemporal Prediction via Optimal Transport-Guided Masking.
J. Tong and colleagues. Under review at Pattern Recognition.
STOT
Bridging Stakeholder Participation and Planning Implementation: An AI-Enabled Decision Support System for Equitable Green Infrastructure Planning.
J. Tong, S. Wang, and colleagues. Planned submission to Sustainable Cities and Society.
POLIS
Disaster-Resilient Transportation Intelligence: Cross-Continental Detection of Multi-Hazard Traffic Anomalies for Urban Adaptation and Emergency Response.
J. Tong, S. Wang, and colleagues. Target venue: Transportation Research Part D.
Disaster-Resilient Transportation Intelligence
Teaching & Service
Teaching Assistant
2025-2026 Final Year Project
2024-2025 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence for Science; Fundamentals of AI in Science
2023-2024 Advanced Statistics for Natural Sciences; Global Environmental Issues
Academic Service
Journal reviewer for Applied Soft Computing and Cities.
Skills
Python, MATLAB, LaTeX, Java · PyTorch, CUDA, distributed training ·
QGIS, ArcGIS, Google Earth Engine, ENVI · Figma
Contact
PhD Candidate
Institute of Systems, Molecular & Integrative Biology
University of Liverpool